I’m not the only one who finds Mr Mucus (eeew!), the advertising mascot and chief spokes-thing for Mucinex, to be largely genuinely repulsive. Kimberly Ripley, writing on Gather.com, said in 2006:The first advertisement I saw had me sitting upright, laughing, and shaking my head in disgust...all at the same time. Mucous has mated. It has procreated, which resulted in little mucous wad children bouncing on their tiny twin beds. Have you ever watched mucous have a pillow fight?
I've complained about the Mucinex ads before. Mucous is personified. It wears overalls and carries a suitcase as it is evicted from some poor slob's lungs after...of course...using Mucinex. In subsequent ads Mucous gets an apartment, marries a female wad of mucous in a white dress and veil, and even visits elderly mucosal in-laws.
Adams Respiratory Therapeutics of Ft. Worth, TX, has itself a family of winners in the Mucuses. The marketing for this product line (Mucinex, Mucinex D, Maximum Strength Mucinex, Musinex DM, etc.) is beating the snot out of every other competitor. Jim Edwards, writing on Allbusiness.com a year ago, noted:
In just three years, Mucinex has come from nowhere and now threatens to end the dominance of the traditional giants of the category. Mucinex’s sales have gone through the roof and currently rival or exceed that of McNeil/Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol and Benadryl, and Wyeth’s Robitussin…The general consensus is that Adams’ success has come from its memorably disgusting marketing. Ads, handled in-house, show Mr. Mucus and his equally hideous family taking up unwanted residence in someone's lungs, and then being evicted by Mucinex. “Mucinex in. Mucus out,” is the tag.
The kicker, according to Edwards, is that Adams may have gotten the US FDA to “help out” with restricting other OTC medicines in this category, giving Mucinex a clear run at the niche lead.
One sidelight is the September story of two 10-year-old Florida boys who used Mucinex tablets to get higher than kites – then sick to their stomachs. This kind of news doesn’t get much play…and probably shouldn’t: If Mucinex does work as advertised, then it’s rightly popular. The manufacturer has outmaneuvered both the competition and the regulators and seems to be delivering an effective product.
Which brings us back to the messages, the media and Mr Mucus. The advertising budget is overwhelming. The copy is relentless – in one current ad, the word “Mucinex” occurs nine times; the word “mucus” shows up six times. (See here, “mucus” seems to be Latin for the noun meaning “slimy, semi-fluid discharge from the nose.” Ripley's “mucous” is supposed to be the adjectival form. Good luck with that.)
The art of Mr Mucus, though, is admirable. TV commercials are consistent and the website nicely interactive. There’s even a segment for kids. I’d never have come up with Mr Mucus…I am too Victorian. But the creators of this set of spokes-things clearly have a nose for it.
In fact, the Mucus Family’s originators follow in a long line of ad-guys of the type that brought us halitosis, BO and “the heartbreak of psoriasis.” I want our American Marketing Association chapter to invite this team to Houston for a case history presentation right now!
