I've told you about the need for all of us to buy a $295 toothpaste tube squeezer, because you really can't put a price on oral hygiene.
Still, some products are a tough sell.
Enter Morgan the Talking Tongue.
Morgan is a tongue-in-cheek mascot for Orabrush, a company which sells tongue scrapers. Yes, a man in a tongue suit is trying to sell me a tongue scraper. Seriously? Gag me, literally.
I just ordered two.
To make a palatable commercial for a tongue scraper, you need skill and humor. In Morgan, Orabrush has found the right tongue for the job. Through a series of YouTube videos, he and his cohort, "Orabrush Guy", promote the need to fight halitosis. For those afflicted with bad breath, "It affects everyone near and dear to them, especially near to them." My favorite video is the one where Morgan and Orabrush Guy run a "race for the cure" which borrows heavily from Forrest Gump. Who knew a giant running tongue needed a headband? Tongues don't sweat.
The marketing genius behind the campaign is Jeff Harmon. Brafton News reports that Harmon told a the SES marketing conference in San Francisco recently that when he was approached about promoting Orabrush, "the product seemed difficult to market." He decided to spend $500 on a short,humorous online video. Two years later, that video has had over 15 million hits.
Orabrush will soon be for sale at Wal-Mart . Harmon says his marketing campaign, while funny, focused on how the product works. "Don’t go for something you think might go viral," he told marketers. "Go for something sustainable. Create a conversion video that will really sell your product."
The company has maintained that focus even in the latest videos. After the hilarious "race for the cure" ends, you are shown two regular consumers scraping their tongues to discover they desperately need an Orabrush.
Come to think of it, Morgan could use a little scraping himself.
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