Hey, where’s the sword-swallower with a scratchy throat? These “mouth of horrors” ads via Saatchi & Saatchi Cape Town for Novartis sore throat remedy Mebucaine are reminiscent of old Coney Island freak show posters, and are about the strangest pharmaceutical ads I’ve ever seen. In fact, the second strangest ones I’ve come across are these screaming neckmouth ads—also for Mebucaine, via Switzerland. The Mebucaine product manager is apparently insane. In America, thanks to the nanny-oversight of the FDA, we get actor husband/wife lying in bed rubbing throat looking miserable until medicine is taken then they’re happily sleeping soundly TV commercials. Click the images above to begin your free freak show gallery. |Images: IBIA|
One Response to “Step Right Up and See the Sore Throat Freaks”
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These remind me an awful lot of a bit in Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, which was published in the mid 1990s. In it, the advertising industry is brought down, in part by a series of ads for a headache medicine. The ads are paintings depicting people suffering headaches, and the headache pains are represented by things like axes coming out of their heads.