Maybe it's Maybelline, maybe it's someone else entirely...

My memory seems to be getting worse as I get older. Yes, ok, that’s not news and it’s not like I’m bucking the general trend or anything. I just wanted to mention it, in case I forget to mention it because – have I been here before? - my memory’s getting worse. Basically, I'm not sure that I haven't already written about this in some earlier post - but perhaps it won't have been in these very words!

Anyway, enough said about that, as I’m sure y’awl will agree. My grouse today is all the ads on TV from Maybelline ending with the tag “Maybe it’s Maybelline”. Well, IS it or isn’t it? With the entire ad promoting the product as being from Maybelline, where’s the sense in then saying “Maybe it’s Maybelline”?

I know that the tag is a continuation of the catchphrase that made the Maybelline products famous in all the years (decades?) gone by: “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline”, the idea being that Maybelline products look so natural when applied that nobody will know for sure whether or not the wearer's blemish-free skin or thick long lashes are thanks to Nature or Maybelline.

The point is, Maybelline’s colourful array of products now certainly can’t be marketed using the original tagline – not unless women are born with turquoise eyelids and magenta lips – so they’ve merely removed the first line of the original tag and left it at “Maybe it’s Maybelline”, because possibly that was the phrase that built their fortune and they wanted it to remain in public memory.

Pretty stupid, though, wouldn’t you agree? I think the promoters of Maybelline should ensure that whatever top advertising firm they employ, for whose services they undoubtedly pay huge amounts, is made to use some amount of the money and all of their creativity to actually come up with a whole new catchphrase that will capture the imagination of the people. That will also have the incidental benefit of stopping me frothing gently at the mouth every time I see or hear “Maybe it’s Maybelline”.