Tylenols Ouch campaign

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American Analog Set,White Magic,Orthrelm,Black Dice to thread.
LOS ANGELES A California couple is suing the maker of Children's Motrin (MOH'-trihn), claiming the painkiller caused their seven-year-old daughter's blindness.
The family accuses McNeil Consumer and Specialty Pharmaceuticals of concealing potential health risks. McNeil is a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson. Several other firms that distribute the medication are also named in the suit.

The girl's parents are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

According to the suit, the day after the girl took Children's Motrin drops she awoke with a high fever and other symptoms, and lost her eyesight in both eyes within a couple of days.

According to the suit, doctors later concluded the girl had contracted Stevens-Johnson Syndrome -- which is typically caused by an adverse reaction to a drug or virus.

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Monday, 17 January 2005 17:59 (twenty years ago)

I thought this tread was going to be about how Tylenol was using the Rutles' song as their new jingle.

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 17 January 2005 18:07 (twenty years ago)

dude - im totally confused. black dice?

― peter smith (plsmith), Monday, 17 January 2005 18:07 (twenty years ago)

http://www.ouchthewebsite.com/page.jhtml?id=ouchthewebsite/blackdice/blackdice.inc

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Monday, 17 January 2005 18:31 (twenty years ago)

In the most recent issue of a magazine called "Flaunt," they included a split EP by White Magic and American Analog Set, with 3 exclusive new songs from each band, packaged in a nice sleeve with a painting of 2 wolves on it. For some reason, it's part of a bizarre ad campaign from Tylenol - they direct you to a website on the back on the CD that is hosting an Orthrelm interview and features strips from various alternative comics people. No idea why this company would think this has potential as an ad campaign - doesn't seem like the product could benefit from being "hipped" up.

(x-post re: the website)

But... I'm not sure about the merit of that suit. I'm not out to defend Tylenol or anything, but it would seem to me that there are always "potential health risks" when administering ibuprofin, aspirin, acetaminophin, or any drug to anyone. People have allergic reactions to things. It's sad, and it's an awful thing to happen to a child, but it happens - the risks are implicit.

But what are you saying with the post -- is it some kind of "told you so" thing for bands that get involved with corporate "sponsorship" (not that this would be an illegitimate response)?

― Chuckling at the Tomkat's Marquee (Ben Boyer), Monday, 17 January 2005 18:37 (twenty years ago)

more of the former..it doesn't seem like any of these bands need more HQ(hipness quotient), and by potentially involving thmeselves in murky waters concerning parent companies and their toxic family trees..Or maybe record companies dont vomit cash like they used to and young bands would rather take their chances w sponsors.I would never say I told u so,my American Express ads are due to run next month..I am filmed in a long shot walking through a forest holding the hands of "children",but who are actually adult actors.We come upon a housae that has no lights and we offer the old lady inside a cookie to dance in the barnyard for us.We pay for the cookie w/ our oversized cookie textured Amex card at the bakery and thats pretty much it.

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Monday, 17 January 2005 19:05 (twenty years ago)

I find the Ouch campaign very confusing and befuddling. I'd be more suspicious and more irritated by it if it just wasn't so ineffectual and inexplicable.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 17 January 2005 19:09 (twenty years ago)

our record store distibutes Arthur magazine and when they did a campaign last month w blown-in mini comic books about skaters that scraped their knees..theyt all ended up falling out all over the floor..If their is one way to assure that someone won't respond to yur shill is to have things popping out of printed matter into their laps.

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Monday, 17 January 2005 19:14 (twenty years ago)

WTF? Ha ha, this is so great! (not the little girl obv.) They want all of the kids getting headaches at shows to think "Tylenol." "Hmm, how can we capture the youth market? They think Tylenol is for old folks!"

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Monday, 17 January 2005 19:19 (twenty years ago)

i dunno - i feel like this is pretty funny and cool. i guess this is a weird example of noise/mainstream culture crossover that spin magazine is constantly threatening. tylenol?

― peter smith (plsmith), Monday, 17 January 2005 19:20 (twenty years ago)

yeah the Arthur thing is what I'm referring to. it just didn't make any sense. but if Tylenol wants to throw money away on Arthur, hey go ahead...

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 17 January 2005 19:20 (twenty years ago)

I believe one of the main people on this campaign is the guy running Arthur magazine. He's into noise, he knows the bands well enough to say hi, he's found himself a corporate account and a checkbook and he's running with it.

So I don't exactly fault the bands but once I actually saw the website, I felt pretty vile. They are marketing painkillers to small children.

― (Jon L), Monday, 17 January 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)

do we have a direct link to that AP story anywhere?

― (Jon L), Monday, 17 January 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)

you must be referring to Laris, the publisher. When I asked my brother Jay (the editor) about it he didn't really know or care about it.

(fwiw the pharmaceutical industry on the whole is evil evil EVIL. Almost more evil than the petrochemical industry)

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 17 January 2005 19:24 (twenty years ago)

ouch indeed. kinda anti everything Jay stands for, right ?

― Brad Laner (Brad Laner), Monday, 17 January 2005 19:34 (twenty years ago)

well, I guess he'd be the proper one to answer that question... I just thought it was weird when I saw it. The comic book was a very arty po-mo take on those old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books (containing an "extreme" athletes vs. corporate culture narrative), with a solitary, inexplicable Tylenol logo on the front. When I saw it I was like "is this an ad? Or is it just a comic book sponsored by Tylenol? Or is it some sort of Adbusters type of joke?" It was just a head scratcher all around.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 17 January 2005 19:45 (twenty years ago)

i guess being blind makes black dice more tolerable omg wtf lol tylenol roolz

― Martha Stewart and Jeanne-Claude (deangulberry), Monday, 17 January 2005 19:46 (twenty years ago)

one website sez these are to credit w the creation of th campaign......http://www.ghava.com/

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Monday, 17 January 2005 19:56 (twenty years ago)

from Fortune magazine...
THIS JUST IN
The Pill Whose Name Goes Unspoken
How do you sell painkillers to an entire generation of consumers hooked on body piercing and extreme sports?
By Julia Boorstin

Ask any parentâ€”if you tell kids what to do, they're sure to do the exact opposite. Tylenol seems to have read that child-rearing chapter, because lately it has been acting like the coolest parent on the block. The pain pill's maker has launched a marketing campaign aimed at young people that has an unusual characteristic: It makes no suggestionâ€”none at allâ€”that they should buy Tylenol.

Since last summer, Tylenol's maker, a unit of Johnson & Johnson called McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals, has spent $2.5 million to fund events in fringe subcultures populated by 18- to 34-year-oldsâ€”skateboarding competitions, breakdancing contests, snowboarding exhibitions, and the like.

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:02 (twenty years ago)

if they were fuckin serious about it they would get Wolf Eyes and Cock ESP in on th gravy train..Ouch!

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:03 (twenty years ago)

WTF? WTF? WTF? WTF? WTF?

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:09 (twenty years ago)

sounds kinda like Nike (or VW) - advertising by affiliation and ubiquitous logo placement rather than explicitly saying BUY THIS PRODUCT.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 17 January 2005 20:11 (twenty years ago)

These are some pretty good Black Dice tracks.

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:14 (twenty years ago)

I probably just reacted exactly how they want. "What the fuck ... oh hey, these are some cool tunes."

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:22 (twenty years ago)

"Ask any parentâ€”if you tell kids what to do, they're sure to do the exact opposite. Tylenol seems to have read that child-rearing chapter, because lately it has been acting like the coolest parent on the block. The pain pill's maker has launched a marketing campaign aimed at young people that has an unusual characteristic: It makes no suggestionâ€”none at allâ€”that they should buy Tylenol."

But I don't think it will work. It's a classic example of advertisers overthinking things a bit. Volkswagen could be sold this way because cars already had the capacity to be cool. Pain relief medication does not have any potential to be cool, IMHO.

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:25 (twenty years ago)

They really should remind people not to take acetaminophin with alcohol, though. I was going to kick back with a few drinks and some Tylenol while listening to their free music, but that'd be a bad idea.

― mike h. (mike h.), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:26 (twenty years ago)

Go ahead and mix the booze and the bills! Just make sure you download the Neon Hunk e.p. before you sue the shit out of them!

― Chuckling at the Tomkat's Marquee (Ben Boyer), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:28 (twenty years ago)

Are Black Dice fans are turned off by this sort of thing? Personally I don't much mind bands trying to make a living.

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:29 (twenty years ago)

where there are fans of this kind of music there is always a beer sponsorship not far behind..We played a show last week that Rheingold donated many free cases of their rectal cancer accelerator to and I suppose I should of had a bowl of ibuprofen as well..Then I would be on the edge of culture.It is not a drug to be consumed in large quantities due to livers being so sensitive and all but maybe there are 5 more sides of this story.

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:33 (twenty years ago)

the sightings and orthrelm also have free tracks and/or video available.

dude, i'd love free tylenol. our band has to be loud because the drummer can't play quiet and therefore, everyone else is too loud. tylenol is required.
m.

― msp (msp), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:34 (twenty years ago)

I am SO switching to Tylenol now.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Monday, 17 January 2005 23:35 (twenty years ago)

https://www.worstpills.org/

― (Jon L), Monday, 17 January 2005 23:39 (twenty years ago)

i mean, fuck the pharmaceutical industry and everything... but a lot of people get headaches, including the people in the bands that are promoting this... so there are less relevant bedfellows. i don't really have a problem with it because i think they are advertising a fairly /unbrandable/ product. plus i always like to see small bands getting more money, whether through commercials or advertising tie-ins or whatever.
i drive a scion, i hate the commercials. i bought it because it was a cheap brand new japanese car. do people assume that i fell victim to their insidious traps? yes. i once was told, upon parking, "i bet you use an apple computer." guess what i'm typing on right now?
rejecting it altogether only makes them try harder and be more fucked up. ignoring it and taking from it what you can is probably best. next time i get a headache i might chuckle if i see tylenol... but i'll still buy whatever's cheapest because it's not an image/culture purchase.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Monday, 17 January 2005 23:51 (twenty years ago)

yeah, when i went to go see eno/black dice/kim gordon/EYE from the boredoms/rita ackermann/and a bunch of other people speak at cooper union, there was a tylenol ouch! table giving out free samples!

?!?!?

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 17 January 2005 23:54 (twenty years ago)

that was at that creativity now thing from tokion, right? how was that? i just read the issue though i'm pretty sure the articles are very brief excerpts. goddamn i love tokion.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 00:06 (twenty years ago)

I think there's an assumption within the advertising industry that if you get "the kids" early, they'll be loyal consumers for life (so you can ignore 'em when they're older).

I think the company is counting on the campaign's weirdness to be the hook that'll get bright young hipsters thinking about Tyelnol, thus making them incrementally more likely to choose that brand over all the other practically identical ones on the drug store shelf -- the fact that nobody expects Tylenol to do this, the fact it's WEIRD they should care seems in keeping with many kinds of recent oddball ads using Adult Swim-style surrealism (that Burger King website with the chicken), indie film dryness (the Stephin Merritt-scored thing for Mercury) and 70's culture rehash (Target and Old Navy).

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 00:32 (twenty years ago)

"I think the company is counting on the campaign's weirdness to be the hook that'll get bright young hipsters thinking about Tyelnol"

uh-oh... LOCK THREAD!!

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 18 January 2005 00:34 (twenty years ago)

Fuck you, too.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 00:39 (twenty years ago)

uh, that was just a little joke there about how all us bright young hipsters are talking about Tylenol on a board devoted to music.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 18 January 2005 00:45 (twenty years ago)

haha

have some tylenol daddio

OUCH

― heavy d interpol herpes (deangulberry), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 00:58 (twenty years ago)

hey firstworldman--i wrote the tokion conference up in the january issue of the wire (the one with lcd on the cover). it was ok! eno was brilliant, the rest was so-so i thought. could've used better meds than tylenol, ha ha

― geeta (geeta), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 06:33 (twenty years ago)

I think they dropped the ball with their web-design -- totally un-hip. Also the name "Ouch" is really annoying.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 06:40 (twenty years ago)

yeah, geeta... in theory the creativity now conf. seems like such a brilliant idea and an opportunity for true connection between creators and audience. i think i have probably idealized because i like the magazine so much. it seems maybe to incidentally occur to/with things... doesn't seem dedicated to any one particular trend or style. for instance, there was an article about astronauts on the space station a few issues back that was one of the most touching things i have ever read, in an abstract galactic way (err... ha!?) and a panel between photographers who shoot various megalopolises (sp?), particularly shanghai, that were so amazingly breathtaking and made me glad to be on the planet earth.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 06:46 (twenty years ago)

I just got a copy of that White Magic/American Analog Set ep shrinkwrapped with my subscription copy of SPIN. Weird! Except for the Tylenol logo on the back, it looks like a real-deal indie EP, like any other promo that I'd get. Very peculiar.

― Matthew "Flux" Perpetua, Thursday, 20 January 2005 19:08 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

Here's an explanation why Tylenol is suddenly interested in indie rock. Marketing people are scary.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheMeter/050211.html

― louwittmer, Friday, 11 February 2005 03:57 (twenty years ago)

"What Ouch! was designed to do was allow that generation to speak and explore pain through their own eyes and their own heroes."

DEAR GOD.

― kejiseji, Friday, 11 February 2005 04:25 (twenty years ago)

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