Soft Sell Guy

Dick Wolfsie

I’m a sucker for anything that might make me a better husband, so when an email appeared in my inbox with the subject: WHAT WOMEN WANT, you can be sure I clicked on it. I knew there was a chance this was an ad for something embarrassing (enough said), but there was also the possibility I was about to get valuable insight into the female psyche.

So what do women want? Apparently, they want Dr. Hess Udder Ointment, a concoction created over 100 years ago that makes your hands smooth and feet callus-free. For years, I tried being sensitive, considerate, romantic. This is how little I knew about the opposite sex.

With a name like Udder Ointment, it should either be something you spread over that specific part of the bovine anatomy or, at the very least, it should come from the cow’s udder. For example: Vegetable oil comes from vegetables and baby oil is for babies. On the other hand, there’s Lucas Oil and Olive Oyl. I could make fun of both of those names, but I like my seats on the 40-yard line and I’d never antagonize a woman whose boyfriend has huge forearms.

So how did they come up with this udderly ridiculous name? (I tried to resist that pun, but I am a weak person.) Dr. Hess introduced his original product to turn-of-the-twentieth-century farmers who lamented that their cows’ udders were extremely raw and chapped. The fact that the farmers’ wives and children were huddled next to the wood-burning stove, withered from the harsh Midwestern blizzards, was of little concern. But those chafed udders? How unsightly. Something needed to be done.

So the farmers applied Dr. Hess’ emollient cream to the cows’ semi-privates. Soon it was discovered that those doing the milking also benefited. Just what a guy needs when he’s tilling his 300 acres of corn: softened hands. Not only that, but after a session in the barn milking Elsie—and shoveling out the manure—farmers found that their silky touch made their wives eager for romance. Dr. Hess was to become a very rich man. And a godfather several times over.

The Dr. Hess enterprise was not content with producing just the ointment. They later developed a lip balm called the Udder Stick. Can you think of a product whose name better says: Spread that on my kisser? It’s marketing genius.

The company that Dr. Hess founded in 1898 has been in several hands over the years. Those hands were always soft and delicate, but a few of them might have gotten caught in the cookie jar, so now ownership is back in the family, with the founder’s great-granddaughter.

In an act of humanitarianism, the newly owned company donates Udder Ointment to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Generations of soldiers have enjoyed care packages from home that included posters of Betty Grable, Farrah Fawcett or Britney Spears. Chocolate also hit the spot. Often, a good cigar was tucked away in a pair of socks. But can you imagine the rapture that unfolded when a year’s supply of Udder Ointment first hit the runway in Baghdad?

A product’s name can make a big difference in its success. I am working on a new toothpaste for guys and am thinking of calling it either Pig Paste or Goat Goop. What a refreshing way to start a morning. And, after all, isn’t that what men want?