The Colgate Total Advert: The Tooth Behind the Lies!

If this post was a toothpaste advert it would be shaking so violently and uncontrollably that you wouldn't even be able to read it. 'Passers-by' with 2:2 degrees in Drama and Acting from backwater polytechnics would be saying: "Wow. This post is really good. It is just like a leading brand post. I now feel really good". Then a 'dentist' would show you a high-poly 3D graphic of what your face looks like when you read this post; you would 'gasp'- "I had no idea!" The dentist would then smile and touch your leg and probably the soft skin on your neck whilst he whispered made up scientific-sounding words into your ear.

This advert sums it up. It sums up all that is wrong with everything. Arguably, this advert is Broken Britain: Appallingly Dreadful Colgate Challenge Advert.

I have no idea why anyone would or could think that this way of producing an advert could be anything other than a cringe worthy adfail. If anything, these adverts have done more to damage my teeth by my symptomatic grinding whenever they're on. My immediate concern is a potential future Pavlovian effect whereby my teeth start grinding whenever I walk down the aisles and see a stack of toothpaste; the dentist's face appearing before my eyes in terrifying high-poly 3D flashbacks.

It's the arrogance of the advert and the utter contempt it must have for my intelligence to even try and suggest that I could believe the situation: A lone male accosts a young woman in a shopping centre and scans her mouth with a prop from Star Trek (complete with sci-fi sounds!) and shows her filthy, filthy mouth on screen. "But I only brushed this morning" she protests, "Not with Colgate Total toothpaste," he replies. By the look on his face and the tone of his voice, his internal response was: "Not with Colgate Total toothpaste, you complete and utter tool. You know what thing you've been doing twice a day for your entire life? Been doing it all wrong, haven't you? Sure, your teeth do look quite incredible- despite my Star Trek Oralscan 3000- but you may as well be brushing your teeth with dog s**t if you don't use Colgate Total." Then he says come back tomorrow! At this point I've lost all respect for this girl; as if she has literally nothing better to do? She probably didn't sleep that night- just sat on the edge of the bed, tensed and shivering, white-knuckled anticipation for 12 straight hours, choking on the filth encrusting her gnashers. When the time comes and the dentist scans her mouth: my word, look at that! That's science; that is science, right there!

"Swizzelstick? Of course not. I've never even heard of a Double Dip. This is an Oralscan 3000. By the way, you have very pretty eyes..."

Who is watching this advert and thinking "Well... All those other toothpaste adverts aren't testing their products on members of the public and this one actually is. The camera is shaking, so it's not in a studio; the man approached the woman directly in a shopping centre, so she can't be an actress; the man is wearing a suit, so he's definitely a Professional Expert of some sort. They've even scanned her mouth with what I can only assume is the Oralscan 3000, and that baby doesn't lie. I'd better go buy some Colgate Total right now before my oral cavity erupts with effluence like Mt. Crapatoa."?

In my opinion this exemplifies just the laziest kind of advertising: misleading, disingenuous, and shallow.