Apparently Max le Tampax is all stressed out about heading off to the Tampon Academy, where he’ll learn all about freshness and vaginal awareness and how to be empowerful to women.
Something like that, anyway. I don’t speak French, so I’d welcome a translation of this ad for a new Tampax product introduced in France.
[via The Frisky]
I didn’t catch everything he says (must practice my French!). But the gist of it is that it’s Back to School time for Maxim (“my mates call me Max”) as well as the audience, but he’s off to a special school: the Tampon Academy!
He’s introducing clips of his lessons (yes, there are other videos in the series) in which they appear to be learning how to be the best possible tampons (whilst throwing stuff at each other behind the teacher’s back). The word on the blackboard is “painless”, in a different clip that teacher stresses that inserting a tampon is completely painless. The whole campaign seems to be aimed at girls as first-time tampon users.
Thanks, Gemma!
This is a very interesting message: mischievous tampons must learn to settle down and be painless for the ease and comfort of young girls. So I wasn’t so far off with my prediction of vaginal awareness and making women feel empowerful.
Here is a rough and quick translation! It’s meant as a parody of certain reality shows I think.
Max “Hi I’m Maxime, my mates call me Max. It’s back to school for me too but I’m kind of scared because I’m going to a special school.”
Teacher “The top of the top, the creme de la creme, the cherry on the cake”
Max “Well no panic, it’s going to be nice, I’m going to meet new friends and to learn plenty of stuff about girls.
Green tampax “with all your colors you are so girly!”
Max “Well it won’t be easy, I have to avoid making mistakes”
Teacher (with spanish accent) “take a deep breath… and now you are relaxed”
Max “I don’t want to repeat this year”
Teacher “We are professionals”
Max “I’m Max, I shouldn’t be too relax”
I’ve watched some of the other videos (must admit that they are quite funny, even though now I have a cup I’m never wearing tampons again…). I think the whole idea is to show how the tampons are well trained to be nice and easy to use (only the best will be selected, the “tampon academy” only keeps the elite). One of the main messages is that using a tampon is entirely painless. It’s designed to appeal to teenage girls with all the references to reality shows (especially Star Academy, a French version of American Idol).
Thank you for these translations, La poule pondeuse.
I don’t think such ads will ever air on television in the U.S. The Departments of Standards and Practices at U.S. television networks (aka “the censors”) would not permit a man to appear dressed as a tampon!