Zyrtec’s Gettin’ Desperate
An advertisement for Zyrtec popped up recently during an episode of Desperate Housewives on Hulu (yes, I still watch that show, ha-ha), and it’s desperate attempt to stand out against Allegra was disappointing. You can watch the commercial for yourself here, but I will describe it anyway: A businessman and his female coworker are walking through the park. The businessman sneezes, awkwardly flirts with his female coworker, and proceeds to pull out a bottle of fruit juice to take with his Allegra. “You can’t drink fruit juice with Allegra!” female coworker exclaims in a foreboding tone, “It says so right on the bottle. With Zyrtec, you can drink fruit juice!” (And, that’s all that is said about Zyrtec).
I imagine that the brainstorming for this ad went something like this:
“Allegra is our biggest competitor. How can we make Zyrtec appear more desirable than it?”
“Well, we have to be truthful about the comparison between the two…”
“Hey! It says you can’t drink juice with Allegra. Everybody loves juice. VOILA!”
As far as production and acting go, the commercial was fine, but the fact that they decided to highlight the ability to drink juice with the product instead of the medical or lifestyle benefits seems pretty trivial. I guess in my opinion it feels like a weak attempt at advertising whenever a company simply compares itself to another product as it’s only argument for itself.
When I went to go watch the spot, the second comment down on YouTube was this: “Show me an allergy medicine that can’t be taken with water, and then we’ll have a real problem on our hands. Seriously, who’s going to switch medications because Allegra can’t be taken with juice? Is there a freaking water shortage or something?” (Guess you aren’t the ONLY ONE that caught on to the fact that Zyrtec didn’t have anything to really say about their product!!!)
I saw this ad too, and it made me stop and wonder what would happen if you took Allegra with fruit juice. I automatically assumed some high school chemistry experiment gone wrong. Nothing so dramatic was found. If you take it with fruit juice, about a third of the medicine can disappear and not be absorbed into your body. It’s recommended that you should wait 4 hours after taking the medicine or you’re going to have a chance of decreasing the medicine’s effectiveness. I think if the commercial told us WHY you shouldn’t drink fruit juice with Allegra and how long you have to wait it might’ve been better.