Roughly from November, 1988
to January 1989, I noticed a primitive advertisement being infrequently
broadcast on local television. The film
stock was grainy, and I remember something about a family forming a conga line
and dancing in or around a large bathroom setting to the product jingle.
The product being sold was a
line of (weird-for-the-time) lemon-flavored toothpaste and oral care products
called “NOMEL” (“Lemon” spelled backward). From what little I remember from 30 seconds
of fuzzy advertising, “NOMEL’S” selling point was that it
was “all natural” (Baby Boomers were just beginning to mainstream health food
products in the late 1980’s), presumably an alternative to the harsh,
chemico-minty brands of toothpaste which dominate the marketplace to this day.
All that I remember about
the jingle was that it was a rip-off or rewriting of Ary Barroso’s classic song
“Brazil” featuring that “Dunt-dunt-dunt/dunt-dunt-de-dunt-dunt” tropical
rhythm. The few lyrics I remember go something like this:
“NO-MEL/Nat-ur-all-y/
To
freshen breath and clean your teeth/
NOMEL is
what you need . . .”
As a college student who was
somewhat required to study advertising, the raw, low-budget quality of the spot
suggested to me that someone with a lot of imagination and little money was out
there daring to directly compete with the mammoth personal care product
companies by formulating, manufacturing, and marketing (of all things) their
own local toothpaste brand. As a casual
fan of kitsch, it was mildly amusing
cheezy fun, like some scratchy old advertisement from the 1960’s.
Moreover, this “NOMEL” thing had a D.I.Y. weirdness to it which appealed to the
Punk Rock fan in me. At that time, it
seemed that toothpaste and mouthwash were the exclusive province of large
corporations (Tom’s of Maine, as far as I know, wasn’t yet sold in Louisville). There was “Indie” music and “Indie”
publication, but who had ever heard of an “Indie” toothpaste? It is this peculiar brand of fearless
creative energy which we promote at “MAN-O-PAUSE”, particularly in my own
personal mission to turn passive fangirls and fanboys into active innovators
and artists.
That winter of 1989, I
looked through my local drug and grocery stores in a semi-frantic attempt to
try this weird lemon toothpaste, but no one else had so much as heard of
it. Soon thereafter, the advertisements
disappeared from the television. Did “NOMEL” ever make it to retail shelves?
I wish to interview the
people who created and marketed “NOMEL” for
a possible front cover “NOMEL” issue. IF YOU WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MAKING AND
MARKETING OF “NOMEL” ORAL CARE PRODUCTS,
AND ARE RECEPTIVE TO AN INTERVIEW EITHER ON OR OFF OF THE RECORD, OR IF YOU
HAVE ANY TUBES, BOTTLES, DISPLAYS, ADVERTISING, OR OTHER “NOMEL”
EPHEMERA FOR DONATION OR REASONABLE SALE, PLEASE CONTACT ME ON THIS BLOG, OR OTHERWISE AT:
P. KERZEY
c/o MAN-O-PAUSE Magazine
P.O. Box 234
Floyd’s Knobs, Indiana 47119
Please include “NOMEL” in the subject heading of your
communication, if pertinent.
Thank You,
P. KERZEY, CO-EDITOR
No comments:
Post a Comment