Lifebuoy - Hamster

Via Ads of the World.

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Part advertisement, part Internet hoax.
January 11th, 2009 4:44 pm by Kelly

While I understand what they're getting at, this series of print ads for Lifebuoy hand wash are unfortunate, to say the least.

From top to bottom, we have a hamster, a kitten and (presumably dead and edible) fish, mashed and contorted into food shapes - a muffin, a croissant and a baby bottle, respectively. The copy reads, "You eat what you touch."

The message, obviously, is to wash your dirty mitts before handling food, or else you're eating all those germs you previously touched. It's hard to say which image I find most offensive. The fish ad makes sense, as "seafood" (and "meat" in general) is more likely to harbor food borne pathogens such as salmonella; however, this image also assumes that fish are food. Instead of washing your hands after handling animal corpses, a safer bet is to forgo them altogether.

The hamster and kitten graphics, on the other hand, draw upon and reinforce the idea that non-human animals are inherently dirty and gross. (Actually, the same can be said of the fish, whether they're living or dead. And there's also the whole fish as a gendered insult meme.) The graphic department could have just as easily contorted a small child into the shape of a freshly baked loaf of bread (or, for the ultimate ick out, a baby's diaper into a piece of pizza). As a child, I played in the dirt, collected worms, and ate mud pies. Heck, I still play in the dirt. My point is, humans are germy, too. (We're the ones in need of hand wash, right?)

But the most unfortunate aspect of these ads lies in their uncanny (pun intended) resemblance to Bonsai Kittens.

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