The AcipHex Commercial
Ben and I were watching TV last night and doing the regular things that people do during the commercial segments - tidying the kitchen, checking up on our email, exchanging pleasantries.
Then it happened and we were both fixated: a new commercial for a prescription drug called AcipHex came on. It’s a drug that treats stomach ulcers and heartburn and supposed to be a play on the words “acid” and “effects.”
But really, it just sounds EXACTLY like everyone in the commercial is saying Ass Effects.
Call me juvenile, but I’ve never lost control of myself like I did during this 30-second spot.
They would say “Ass Effects truly helped me return to my normal activities,” and Ben and I would try as hard as we could to stop laughing soon enough to catch the next time they said Ass Effects.
“Ask your doctor before using Ass Effects…”
“How can Ass Effects help you?”
And so on.
I know I often complain about not being a high-level advertising executive, but I really want to get to the bottom of this blunder: did no one, in the dozens and dozens of meetings that I’m sure it took to develop this product, ever mention that their drug sounded a lot like someone saying Ass Effects? Has the business world sunk so far into itself that no one, from the middlest manager to the highest executive, had the nerve to point out a butt joke and save their company a few million dollars and months of ridicule?
Was there never a janitor in the boardroom who looked up from his mop to say, “Not to interrupt, gentlemen, but Ass Effects sounds a lot more like the name of a junior high garage band than of a doctor-prescribed medication. I realize that my job description consists mostly of cleaning up your byproducts, but I would strongly recommend not moving to Phase Two of planning before you resolve this issue.”
Didn’t the president of the pharmaceutical company ever bring his toddler in to work one day when the babysitter was sick, and the toddler would hear the word “AcipHex” and say, “Daddy, even I — a hardly-developed human being with limited motor skills, a substandard language ability, and a crippling thumbsucking addiction - even I could come up with something better than AcipHex if you gave me five minutes. You know, maybe something with less vulgar and downright confusing connotations.”
Didn’t any of the actors in the commercial crack up during the first take, when they said AcipHex for the first time? Didn’t they apologize and say, “I’m sorry, and I’d like to reassure you that I’m a professional actor. But am I pronouncing the product name right? Because it sounds like I just said Ass Effects on camera.”
Did it come up once in a meeting, and their big, brilliant solution to the problem was capitalizing the H? Because I have news for you guys - it doesn’t matter. It still sounds exactly like Ass Effects.
I could see Ass Effects being the new trendy exercise that sweeps the nation and takes the early-morning infomercial circuit by storm. I could see Ass Effecting being a late-night soft-core Cinemax flick that involved a lot of terrible sets and only the slightest hint of a plot. I could even see Ass Effects being the name of a show-stopping award-winning chili.
But I just can’t see it as a heartburn pill.
Thanks to Hilary, the video is linked down below in the comments.
Tags: aciphex, ads, asses, commercials, humor
February 26th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I got your back, Sarah!
Since I’m not sure I’ll be able to embed in your comments, the link is here:
YouTube version.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:03 am
OH Sarah! This is awesome. Thank you!!!!
Ass Effects sounds like what one will get if one uses the Ass Machine you mentioned (and appropriately re-named) a while back.
These marketing people really need to get on the ball!
February 26th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Dude, I feel the same way about the Bayer Asprin commercial.
BARE ASS-PRIN?
February 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am
AHH! Ryan and I saw the same commercial last night (were you also watching Intervention?) and couldn’t stop laughing.
ASS EFFECTS. Hehe!
I don’t want to know about the side effects…
February 26th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Ha! I went to the YouTube commercial since I don’t have a TV, and my boyfriend showed up when it was playing. The first thing he said: “What’s with the Ass Effects?”
February 26th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
You are so right! I can’t stop laughing at this ad! The first time I heard it I thought, “that must be an SNL spoof”! But it’s real.
By the way, I don’t know if everyone knows this but the pH part of the name refers to the chemistry term pH which is a measure of acidity. (I’m a biochemist so that kind of stuck out at me.) But knowing what they we’re trying to say with the name does not make it any less hilarious, believe me!
February 27th, 2008 at 7:51 am
thanks, hilary. why didn’t i think to look up “ass effects” instead of aciphex?
jess - that is too funny. we were watching intervention. it’s like we live in a parallel universe. where we both laugh at the same ass jokes.
april - i think you’ve stumbled upon a much larger problem in the pharmaceutical world.
liana - not a bad idea!
February 27th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
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February 27th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
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February 27th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
oh. my. god. i often wonder what these add executive are thinking too. ever since reading all of “augustin burrough’s” books i wonder what it must really be like . . .
February 28th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I had a similar reaction to commercials for Orudis - an anti-inflamatory. I just went about the house saying ‘Oh, Ruduss!’ like it was some kind of silly mantra, calling Ruduss, whatever. My girlyfriend cured me of it with a well-flung remote. They stopped airing the commercial and I’ve been Oh, Ruduss! free for about three years.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I had a similar reaction to commercials for Orudis - an anti-inflamatory. I just went about the house saying ‘Oh, Ruduss!’ like it was some kind of silly mantra, calling Ruduss, whatever. My girlyfriend cured me of it with a well-flung remote. They stopped airing the commercial and I’ve been Oh, Ruduss! free for about three years.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:32 am
It might be a better name for the Summit Machine you were talking about calling the Ass Machine. The Ass Effects Machine.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:23 am
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April 8th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
The packaging it comes in is called the Ass Pack.