Motion discomfort? I wonder how many marketing staff members it took to come up with that phrase. I can imagine the branding war room where account executives, planners, and creatives have seriously heated debates about whether it should be called motion sickness or motion discomfort ("they're not uncomfortable, they're sick!!"; "if they're sick that means they're uncomfortable!!"). When really all I'm thinking when I read the bag is "if you're gonna spew, spew in this."
Why is the advertising world (or is the client world?) so afraid of the four letter words that we all use to describe these types of bodily functions? Where are the ads that say: shit, poop, puke, runs, hack, and fart?? There is a whole sector trying to come up with other euphemisms like: irregularity, laxatives, bloating, gas, constipation, discomfort, and sickness. Its a crazy semantics dance, when all I want to hear is something that sounds like what I would say when I'm with good friends. "Having trouble going pooh? Maybe you want to try activia?" or "scared of farting in your next interview? take gasX before you go" or "got the runs? pepto bismol works for me."
Here's some examples of how advertisers are actually doing it. Shame on Tums, GasX, LaxaFiber, and Activia for beating around the bush. And half-kudos for Pepto Bismol for at least showing people grabbing their asses when they say "diarrhea" and for Milk of Magnesia for using funny visuals, even though they still only use the word "laxative" in their ads.
And to the advertising world, and especially to the clients who may be asking their agencies to pull back a bit, don't think of these four-letter words as offensive. Think of them as being part of our real life and use them as a means of truly connecting to your audience. Do some research to find out how they talk about these problems and then meet them on their terms. My 2 cents is that I'd have much more respect for a brand that was helping me to not fart, or preventing the runs, or helping me poop than one that was scared of saying a four letter word.
