Marketing Fail: Quietus

We’d like to take a second to tell you about a wonderful new product. It’s a medication called Quietus. Quietus is pill (or something) that was “developed by a rock drummer,” and is solely for the elimination of a constant ringing in the ears that many of us face. Of course, if you suffer from a constant, incessant ear ring, there’s a good chance you’re going insane and/or you’re head is about to explode, like the guy that Quietus uses in their advertizing (pictured above).

But, oh – what’s that, Sci-Fi movie nerds? You say that you’re ears are ringing for different reasons? Well, we’re glad you picked up on that obscure Sci-Fi movie reference. For those of you in the audience that aren’t as dedicated to memorizing every minute detail of great science fiction flicks, let us explain.

A few years ago Clive Owen starred in a great sci-fi flick called Children Of Men. The movie was depressing as all hell. So depressing, in fact, that within the world of the film there exists a pill that will kill you just so you no longer have to face the hell you’re living in. The pill’s name is Quietus.

Also, did you know that Children of Men was based off of a novel of the same name? Yeah, it’s true. Another nice nugget of fact is that in the book, Quietus wasn’t a suicide pill at all. It was something much nicer, in fact. It was the name given to the government approved drowning of old and sick people.

Wait. That’s not nice at all.

So seeing as the word “Quietus” is associated with both a suicide pill and the eradication of the old and sick, why would you name a pill Quietus? Because you have a terrible marketing department.

In all fairness, Quietus was also a word that Shakespeare used in Hamlet during Hamlet’s famous “To Be or Not To be” soliloquy. But after the word gets associated with all kinds of dead people, fictional or not, it kind of loses its luster a bit.