When it comes to beauty, humankind has always had a penchant for pushing the limits. Remember Lip Venom, a lipgloss that debuted some ten years ago? The gloss had irritants meant to make your lips swell, giving you that Scar Jo look with a dash of pain. Well, the Japanese brewing and distilling firm Suntory has taken a hint from the lip plumping product and created a beer infused with collagen, a chemical often used in lip augmentation.
The beer, dubbed Precious, is clearly being aimed toward women, or at least, what Suntory’s marketing department perceives as typical women. Just check out Suntory’s official ad. A group of ladies are enjoying a meal and a round of Precious cold ones when a dude interrupts their party and explains that he can tell if a gal drinks collagen. The ad is gross, in more than one way.
However demeaning the ad is, Suntory might be surprised to find that their booze isn’t the first to contain ingredients linked with cosmetic surgery, and the drinkers behind that product weren’t a gaggle of giggling girls. In 2011, a group of Utah prisoners contracted botulism from drinking prison wine. Botulism, a potentially fatal disease found in Clostridium botulinum, is the same bacteria used to produce Botox. The idea behind Botox is that it paralyzes facial muscles, freezing wrinkles and giving you a youthful appearance. In reality it’s more likely to make you look like a cat.
So you see, Suntory, you’ve been marketing your product all wrong. Clearly you should take a stab at America’s hardened criminals, pun totally intended.
