Selling Incontinence

Advertising goes through phases.  Not satisfied with trying to sell us regular products to meet normal, existing needs, once they feel that a particular niche is saturated with products, they'll invent a new need for a 'new' version of the niche's products.  I'm sure everyone remembers when they started marketing all manner of fabric conditioners and fresheners for laundry - some went in the washing machine, some were sprayed on the clothes either before or after washing, some were applied before you ironed your clothes.  Every base was covered, to the extent that it seemed the market was saturated to the point that there was no room new products.  Sales had been maximized.  Something new was needed, something that would meet some hitherto unrecognised laundry-related need.  So they started telling us that our ironing stank.  We were suddenly bombarded with adverts involving people doing their ironing, then sniffing the air, looking around for the source of the offending smell, before homing in on their laundry, sniffing it and grimacing grotesquely.  It was all presented as if everyone knew about this 'problem' and accepted the need for new anti-ironing stink sprays to be applied before ironing.  The fact is that nobody sniffs their newly ironed clothes which, if they've just been washed, won't stink.

More recently, it's our washing machines which have allegedly stunk, requiring the purchase of all manner of specialised products to eliminate this.  Lately there's been a badly dubbed advert (with some truly shocking lip syncing) telling us how much filth the drums of our washing machines accumulate, (thereby causing that stink), but if you use their detergent to do your washing, then it will stop this vile build up.  All bollocks.  Right now, the big sell is incontinence. That's right - according to advertisers the nation's women are in the grip of an outbreak of incontinence.  They are wetting themselves left, right and centre.  It's an epidemic.  The key thing here is, of course, that these campaigns are aimed solely at women.  Having exhausted the possibilities for advertising every regular type of female hygiene products, the marketers have decided that a new need has had to be identified and a whole range of new products, from pads to incontinence pants, are now being aggressively pushed in TV adverts.  (As an aside, it wasn't so long ago that feminine hygiene products were taboo in TV advertising terms - if you were male, sanitary towels were the stuff of mythology - women apparently didn't have periods in TV ad land.  Now, not only do they have periods, but they regularly piss themselves.  While I'd like to think that this represents advances in the way women are treated  by the media and represent the dawning of more enlightened attitudes, but in truth, it has been driven by the needs of commerce).

But to get back to the incontinence, all of the current campaigns present it as a natural possible consequence of motherhood, although the strategies they use to sell their specific products vary somewhat.  Some of the ads, most specifically the ones for incontinence underwear, are squarely aimed at making women believe they can still be attractive to the opposite sex, despite suffering from incontinence.  I'm particularly thinking about the one with the young mother getting dressed and musing about the changes brought by motherhood.  The whole thing is clearly an excuse for the advertisers to show us an attractive young woman in her underwear, pointing out that her breasts are bigger as the result of being a mother, with the incontinence added almost as an afterthought.  The whole ad feels dangerously close to voyeurism and one can't help but feel that the ad is aimed as much at men as it is at women, ('don't worry if your other half pisses herself - she's still sexy').  Other ads, primarily those for absorbent pads ('turns pee into odourless gel'), present their products as lifestyle enhancing, particularly as they are so thin they are unobtrusive.  As I say, these ads are suddenly everywhere, giving the impression that Britain's women have been hit by a sudden epidemic of incontinence.  One wonders what the next advertising phenomenon will be?

The obvious one would surely be incontinence products for men,  After all, it isn't just a female problem.  The trouble, of course, is that the causes of male incontinence are nowhere near as worthy as that of most female incontinence: motherhood.  Most blokes piss themselves as a result of alcohol abuse.  And we're not just talking about a bit of 'leakage' when laughing or sneezing.  Instead it is usually full on pissing yourself before you can get to the bathroom, or wetting the bed after drinking ten pints.  (To be fair, diabetes can also be a cause of male incontinence - I speak from personal experience here.  Before being diagnosed and prescribed medication, I had a few close calls, I can tell you).  There's no doubt that, when drinking, there's a threshold a man's bladder reaches in terms of pints, after which the floodgates open.  (Another aside, years ago a colleague was going out with a physiotherapist - he eventually married her - who used to get sent these catalogues full of dodgy looking medical equipment.  Naturally, said colleague used to bring them into the office where we'd have a good laugh at them.  Anyway, my favourite amongst this equipment were the 'discreet' incontinence aids which consisted of two plastic bags, one strapped to each leg, which were attached to the sufferer's penis with a catheter.  I always thought that you could look really hard and impressive by wearing such a contraption to the pub - you could down pint after pint without having to go for a piss. Other drinkers would think you had a bladder of iron. It would be a bit difficult walking out at closing time, with two bags full of urine strapped to legs, sloshing around, but a price worth paying, I feel).  With men, the incontinence often isn't confined to wetting yourself - there's also the risk of 'following through' when breaking wind after drinking especially gassy beer, (particularly if it was followed with kebabs or Indian cuisine).  I just don't see anyone advertising men's rubber incontinence pants guaranteed to stop the shit from staining the furniture or trickling down your legs any time soon...