Ad Copy Run Amuck

I was watching TV the other night and the following statement about a product caught my ear:  “It’s natural, not chemical!”

Oh really?

I wondered about the ad copywriters and executives and folks who actually came up with that slogan in some focus-grouped meeting. I wondered if any of them actually listened to what they were saying.  Probably not. They were so taken with the idea of getting across an organic, safe, down-to-earth, whole-grain, new-agey vision for their product that it probably didn’t even occur to them that EVERYTHING is chemical. Of course, what they want you to think is that you’re not putting harmful chemicals or elements on your face or in your belly or wherever.  That’s okay to say — nobody wants to think they’re smearing acid on their skin or drinking melamine. That’s completely understandable.  What the manufacturers should be saying are “Eat the right kind of chemicals.” But even I will admit that that would sound weird. It would be true, though.

Even products that are advertised as being derived from plants — which are, themselves, collections of chemicals bound up in molecules and protein chains and sugar chains and so on — are chemical. Then a company goes and chemically alters and twists and turns them so that they can advertise that they come from nature — and are NOT chemical.  Huh?  They’re still chemicals, no matter where they came from.

Folks, I have news for you — if it exists — it’s chemical.  You’re chemical. I’m chemical. The stuff you eat for breakfast is chemical. The goop you smear on your face is chemical (no matter how many times the manufacturer writes the word “natural” on the bottle).  That’s because we’re all bundles of chemicals strung together in proteins and sugars and all that. Everything is chemical. In fact, it’s natural to be chemical.