The New Retsyn

On the consumer side of things, we would all rather just fork over the ninety-nine cents for the ad-free version of our favorite app and not be interrupted or annoyed by the unsightly commercials that would otherwise cover the cost of the app.  Those of us on the production side of things however, like the revenue those ads generate.

Advertising makes the world go around.  No business happens unless somebody buys something.  Nobody can buy anything if they don’t know it exists.  It is advertising that fixes that problem.

Naturally, those who have products to sell want their advertising to be as effective as possible.  Enter “Retsyn.”  Let’s discuss.  You remember those old ads for Certs.  “It’s a breath mint.”  “No, it’s a candy mint.”  Not surprisingly, the government deemed it to be a candy for tariff purposes since candy was taxed differently than oral hygiene products.  Cadbury, the makers of Certs, eventually got the decision overturned in an appeals court legally making Certs a breath mint.

Take that, you arguing couple on the commercials who told us Certs has Retsyn.  What the hell is Retsyn, you say?  Well, I’ll tell ya.  Retsyn is a trademarked name for a combination of copper gluconate, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, and flavoring.  Wait, what?  That’s just candy!  Are you telling me that Certs has candy in it?  Yep, that’s about the size of it.

But here’s the cool part that gets us back to our point.  They called it Retsyn and once you knew that Certs had Retsyn in it, you were less likely to settle for just any breath mint that contained some lesser ingredient.  It occurs to me that the Retsyn two step was incorporated in a couple other ads we’ve seen lately.  Consider The National Sleep Foundation for instance.  Who would want a pillow that wasn’t endorsed by those folks?  And don’t overlook The National Vitamin Council that put their seal of approval on those vitamins that we now know are the best ever.

Yeah, I think we can all agree that the aforementioned foundation and council are just the new Retsyns.  They are all just a figment of some Madison Avenue genius’s imagination.  Do they have any effect on you?  Have you seen any others that we need to make fun of?  Don’t keep it to yourself.  Jump in and tell us about it while you’re liking, sharing and clicking the RSS button and as always, go forth and do clickwise.  TTFN

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