A great deal of advertising is about problems and inadequacies, the tangible and intangible shortcomings in your life that could be neatly resolved with a satisfying purchase. This may be most true in the case of advertising for prescription products, the subtext of which is always what might ail you: trouble sleeping, trouble having sex, troubles of the body and the mind that you might “ask your doctor” about, soon.
If you’ve heard of eyelash hypotrichosis, for instance, you probably heard about it from an ad for Latisse, which of course is a prescription product that is meant to solve the problem of eyelash hypotrichosis. In the spot, Brooke Shields describes the problem as “inadequate or not enough lashes.” She evidently had this problem herself, because she tells us that she has been using Latisse, which caused the growth of more, thicker lashes. Ask a doctor, she suggests — adding that you can visit the Latisse Web site to find one. It’s applied daily with a special applicator and costs about $120 a month.
