Buckley’s Questionable, Yet Effective, Advertising

by Joey Tung

Coming across Aron Chitsaz’s blog post on Buckley’s strange way of advertising their product, I was instantly reminded of the times when I’d be forced to take Buckley’s whenever I had anything that resembled a cold. The bottle never seemed to run out. It would always be there, waiting for me to use it.

Buckley’s has developed this self-depreciating way of advertising their cough syrups so that their tagline is now, “It tastes awful. And it works”. From a customer’s perspective, because Buckley’s is a medicine, it has no need to be pleasing to taste buds. It is not something customers buy because they want to drink it; they buy it because they need to. Along with that, there seems to be an underlying message in our conscience that makes us believe that because it tastes so dreadful, it ought to work! If presented with the choice between a sweet tasting, fruit flavoured, cough syrup, I’d choose Buckley’s because I think Buckley’s taste like a medicine should.

Given that reflection, it makes one wonder whether the success of Buckley’s, “It tastes awful. And it works”, angle is attributed to the manipulation of a human mind. Have we been brainwashed by the fact that a lousy taste means a natural taste and that natural equals the better syrup?

 

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