Latest advertising gimmick: 3-D plastic tongues

Written by: Rebecca Milner on November 22, 2007 at 1:10 am | In Marketing & Ad Trends |

The latest in over the top Tokyo train stations advertisements is this campaign by Johnson and Johnson’s Reach toothbrush brand. The billboard’s main feature is a giant human-sized (as in the size of an actual human) pink plastic tongue attached to an equally pink background.

Each tongue has a different message, cleverly hinting about why you might need to pay special attention to your breath. The real cleverness of this ad, however, is that the tongues just beg to be touched and therefore cannot be ignored. Really, when I spotted the wall of tongues this weekend in Omotesando station I saw more than a few people (kids and adults) handling the plastic protrusions and even trying to lift them up to see if there was even yet another gimmick lurking underneath (unfortunately the tongues are firmly tethered to their posters).

Like many train station ad campaigns, this one monopolizes a whole corridor of the station, and with all that sickly (err, healthy I guess) pink the effect is decidedly kimoi (gross), not to mention a bit odd in fashionable Omotesando, an area considered by many to be the height of good taste.

In fact just about every other ad in the neighborhood is pushing some kind of glitter princess Christmas romance in the name of good taste. Yeah, I kind of want to stick my tongue out at those ads too. That’s probably not the point, but thanks Reach!

So what are the tongue ads actually selling? A closer look at the product on the Reach
Japanese website shows that the on the back of these new toothbrushes is a “soft tongue cleaner” which promises better breath and oral hygiene in general. Not a bad idea.

For more coverage of the wonderful world of Tokyo train station advertising gimmicks, PingMag ran an excellent article on them last year, which you can read here.

Tags: Campaigns, Omotesando
Category: Marketing & Ad Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Press coverage