Criminal #15: Energizer "Viagra also makes it keep going and going..."

Every so often you run into one of those commercials that makes you go "Naah?" and then shift awkwardly in your seat. It's a bit like being a teenage boy and watching Juno with your mum, or so I'm led to believe from several teenage boy sources. This would be one of those ads, for me at least, mostly for the subtle suggestive ideas that arise when you really think about it.

So let's look at it shall we? (clicky clicky for a bigger piccy) So we've got to very bored little uns' a girl and a boy, observe the boys penis. A new fascination to be sure, and I'm sure tiny, probably about the size of an energizer battery.

You see the first issue I have isn't that it's two kids looking at the penis, it's the fact that this ad makes me think about just what they're thinking about. Dirty, dirty pictures in my head. Sexuality and youth are (I'd say) the two strongest weapons advertisers have on their size, and this certainly isn't the first time they've been mixed together. A few Johnson & Johnson baby ads come to mind that I'll have to hunt down later.

Next, to the more subtle elements. Okay, actually, only one. Wait no, two, but I already mentioned the battery in comparison to penis size so that ones out. Look in the top left hand corner where Energizer has slapped their name and cute little catch phrase. "Never let their toys die" Yeah, and we all know what you mean by toys, right? Some may think that's the paranoia speaking but I guarantee you that is exactly the reference these advertisers were trying to make. Don't believe me? What little toy do you see in the boy? A wand, right? One of those little light-up jobbies that you can wave around and be amused by. Why a wand? Why not a Rubix cube? A Transformer? A Gameboy? A set of blocks that can be used to teach your child letters? Hell, a teddy bear would have been just as good, oh right, but that doesn't use batteries.

Let me give you a mathematical equation to chew on

Batteries = Viagra for kids.

Energizer, I have no pithy phrase to tell you I think you're scum and whatnot. So, yeah, not going and going anymore are you? Yeah, take that.