USA Today reports on a new line of toothbrushes that play music while you brush:
The brush, in development for two years, will come in 18 varieties, each with a different two-minute song clip — the amount of time dentists recommend for a good brushing — from a popular artist.
When the user pushes a button on the manual toothbrush, it “plays” a song. As the bristles are brushed across the teeth, they send sound waves through them so that the user hears the song in his or her head.
I didn’t think this idea was anything extraordinary because a lot of little gadgets play tunes. Then I got to the last paragraph of the story:
The toothbrushes will get a push from a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign that begins Oct. 23. The TV ad was inspired by an award-winning 1984 TV ad for Apple, that showed a revolutionary change with its then-new Macintosh personal computers.
Hmmm…are we really looking at the Macintosh of toothbrushes? Go to ToothTunes.com, for a link to the commercial (though it doesn’t seem to be working just yet).
The correct link for the commercial is:
http://www.hasbro.com/toothtunes/default.cfm?page=commercial
I saw the clip and I don’t think that Hasbro is making the claim to have designed the MacIntosh of toothbrushes. Instead the spot talks about how this product can liberate kids from the drudgery of brushing teeth. And it was pretty engaging. I find it funny that the homage to Apple’s “1984” ad will most likely be lost on the audience, who weren’t even around at the time.