Below is a let­ter from one Wendi Aarons, a fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to lit­er­ary web­sites such as mc​sweeneys​.net, to one James Thatcher, brand man­ager for Proctor and Gamble, re­gard­ing their Always fem­i­nine prod­ucts. It was sent last year (and was voted PC Magazine’s 2007 ed­i­tors’
choice for best webmail-award-winning let­ter) but I posted it now be­cause: one, it still res­onates; and two, it’s a good ex­am­ple of brands and the emo­tional ties peo­ple have to them, which is a topic I re­cently stud­ied in class. It goes to show you that no mat­ter how good your prod­uct is, your brand should be bet­ter. Read on for a great laugh; my com­ments fol­low the letter.

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your Always maxi pads for over 20 years, and I ap­pre­ci­ate many of their fea­tures. Why, with­out the LeakGuard Core™ or Dri-Weave™ ab­sorbency, I’d prob­a­bly never go horse­back rid­ing or salsa danc­ing, and I’d cer­tainly steer clear of run­ning up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my fa­vorite fea­ture has to be your rev­o­lu­tion­ary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on be­ing the only com­pany smart enough to re­al­ize how cru­cial it is that maxi pads be aero­dy­namic. I can’t tell you how safe and se­cure I feel each month know­ing there’s a lit­tle F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a men­strual pe­riod, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suf­fered from “the curse”? I’m guess­ing you haven’t. Well, my “time of the month” is start­ing right now. As I type, I can al­ready feel hor­monal forces vi­o­lently surg­ing through my body. Just a few min­utes from now, my body will ad­just and I’ll be trans­formed into what my hus­band likes to call “an in­bred hill­billy with knife skills.” Isn’t the hu­man body amazing?

As brand man­ager in the feminine-hygiene di­vi­sion, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of re­search on what ex­actly hap­pens dur­ing your cus­tomers’ monthly vis­its from Aunt Flo. Therefore, you must know about the bloat­ing, puffi­ness, and cramp­ing we en­dure, and about our in­tense mood swings, cry­ing jags, and out-of-control be­hav­ior. You surely re­al­ize it’s a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the vi­o­lent urge to shove her boyfriend’s tes­ti­cles into a George Foreman Grill just be­cause he told her he thought Grey’s Anatomy was writ­ten by drunken chimps. Crazy! The point is, sir, you of all peo­ple must re­al­ize that America is just crawl­ing with homi­ci­dal ma­ni­acs in capri pants. Which brings me to the rea­son for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramp­ing so painful I wanted to reach in­side my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi pad, and there, printed on the ad­he­sive back­ing, were these words: “Have a Happy Period.”

Are you fuck­ing kid­ding me?

What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain re­ally think hap­pi­ness — ac­tual smil­ing, laugh­ing hap­pi­ness—is pos­si­ble dur­ing a men­strual pe­riod? Did any­thing men­tioned above sound the least bit plea­sur­able? Well, did it, James? FYI, un­less you’re some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be any­thing “happy” about a day in which you have to jack your­self up on Motrin and Kahlúa and lock your­self in your house just so you don’t march down to the lo­cal Walgreens armed with a hunt­ing ri­fle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory. For the love of God, pull your head out, man. If you just have to slap a mo­ronic mes­sage on a maxi pad, wouldn’t it make more sense to say some­thing that’s ac­tu­ally per­ti­nent, like “Put Down the Hammer” or “Vehicular Manslaughter Is Wrong”? Or are you just pick­ing on us?

Sir, please in­form your ac­count­ing de­part­ment that, ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly prof­its, for I have cho­sen to take my maxi-pad busi­ness else­where. And though I will cer­tainly miss your Flexi-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of con­de­scend­ing bull­shit. And that’s a promise I will keep. Always.

Best,

Wendi Aarons
Austin, TX

There is re­ally not much I can add to this. It’s brilliant.

My ques­tion is: What kind of fo­cus groups did they run? Was it made up of five-year-olds? Men? I kind of un­der­stand the logic be­hind the HAHP brand — they are try­ing to make a neg­a­tive ex­pe­ri­ence into a pos­i­tive one. But hav­ing a men­strual cy­cle is like go­ing to war. You don’t want to do it but you know it must be done. You grit your teeth and trudge into bat­tle, Advil in one hand, choco­late in the other. There is noth­ing happy about it, P&G. Just give us the equip­ment we need to fight and wish us luck. Would you wish a sol­dier a happy war? I didn’t think so.

(On a side note, I en­joy the ca­ma­raderie men­stru­a­tion cre­ates be­tween women, even if they are strangers to one an­other. All you have to do is men­tion you are hav­ing your pe­riod and no words need be spo­ken — a sim­ple roll of the eye and nod of the head is con­fir­ma­tion that yes, they feel your pain. It’s like Lee Marvin telling John Cassavetes about the shrap­nel in his leg and Cassavetes just nod­ding, point­ing to his own leg and hand­ing Marvin a cig­a­rette. It’s a bond­ing experience.)

I guess Aarons’s let­ter didn’t have the in­tended ef­fect. If you visit the web­site for Always, the greet­ing is still there, wish­ing you and yours a very happy pe­riod. The US site even has games, recipes and tips on throw­ing a HAHP party. (What would hap­pen if you get a group of men­stru­at­ing women in one room? You wouldn’t stick around long enough to find out, that’s what would hap­pen.) If a box of Always prod­ucts had a voice wish­ing you a happy pe­riod when you opened it, it would prob­a­bly be very cloy­ing and ag­gra­vat­ing, the same voice that tells you your call is in se­quence and will be an­swered by the next avail­able cus­tomer ser­vice agent.

That is why I no longer pur­chase Always prod­ucts. It was a hard de­ci­sion, as they do have some great of­fer­ings. But I do not like to be pa­tron­ized by my fem­i­nine prod­ucts. It’s bad enough I have to pay the GST on them.