Another bit of bastardly marketing

The BBQ Pit
1

Warning: this isn’t going to be particularly vitriolic. More of a weary sigh with eye-rolling than a frothy tirade of righteous outrage.

I’ve mentioned before how we buy our laundry soap in big buckets from the local warehouse store. The buckets are useful, and we tend to hang on to them for a long time. As a side effect of this, I one day noticed that the new bucket I was buying didn’t seem as heavy as the ones I used to pick up. I checked the net weight on the new vs the old buckets and found that over the last five years or so, the amount of soap in a bucket has shrunk by about 25%, while the price has remained unchanged. The ol’ incredible grocery shrink ray in action. Like I say, that’s old news.

Today, while I was brushing my teeth, my bored eyes happened to notice some printing on the latest bucket o’ soap. At the top, it said in big bold letters “250 loads!” and in bigger letters “50 MORE LOADS!!!” I thought that seemed odd, since the size has been shrinking, not increasing, so I looked more carefully. Underneath the 50 MORE LOADS!!! it said, in smaller type, and I quote, “than 200 loads”. Not “than our old size” or “than our competitor’s package”. It was simply informing us that 250 loads is 50 more loads than 200 loads is. They COULD have been selling us a container of 200 loads’ worth of soap, but they’re kindly offering us 250 loads instead. They’re now gleefully advertising simple kindergarten mathematics to us. What do you want to bet that in a few months, I’ll be getting buckets from the store with enough soap for 200 loads?

I wonder what other marketing opportunities we could be missing, using this brilliant new strategy of comparing products to imaginary, hypothetically worse products?

“Our toilet paper hurts your ass less*!”

*than if we were to anally rape you

“The Toyota Camry! Now over 83% safer*!”

*than leaping off a 300 foot cliff onto a mattress

“Get your floors looking 240% brighter*!”

*than they would be if a few dozen octopuses had sprayed them with ink

2

If that car is only 83% safer than leaping off a 300’ cliff then I’ll take a Pinto.

3

It’s OVER 83% safer. You need to be more aware of weasel words.

Perhaps “up to 83% or more safer”.

4

They usually put that on there because 200 loads would be the size they usally sell. I’ve seen that on other products, but I obviously don’t know the specifics of the item you’re talking about.

5

That is how advertising works.

50 percent better!!!
Better than what? They don’t say. Why? They would have to prove it, and whoever they did claim to be “Better than” might sue. So they make an empty “claim” that really says nothing.
“Gets stuff cleaner.” Cleaner than what?
“Tastes better.” better than what?
“More shiny.” Shinier than what?

It sounds better (than what?) without actually saying anything.

6

They usually do say what it is better than. It’s usally compared to a competetor or the older version of their own product, based on the results of a taste test.

If you truly want a good example of weaseling, a beer company ran a huge ad campaign around the fact that they had “more taste”. It was very obvious that the results of the survey didn’t indicate whether or not the participants found the taste to be better.

7

Well, yeah, that’s what I was expecting to find - and no doubt what they were hoping I would assume. But since this is a giant warehouse store package, there’s only the one size. The other sizes they usually sell would be the tiny little things found in regular grocery stores - nothing even close to 200 or 250 loads.

It was more just like they had a space on the package and the boss told someone to put something eye-catching there, and this was the best they could come up with.

8

The thing that gets me is the way that toilet paper is marketed in so many different configurations that it’s almost impossible to comparison shop. I was trying to decide whether to buy my brand from the drugstore or the grocery store, since I had a drugstore coupon. The grocery store was offering 12 (double) rolls for $9.49, while the drugstore was offering 9 (double) rolls for only $4.49, or 2 for $8.00. But something seemed off about the drugstore packages, so I checked the count and found that each roll has 143 sheets. In the grocery store 12-pack, each roll has 190 sheets (and this is the exact same brand and type, with the same packaging). That’s already way too much math for me to do in my head to determine the best buy, not to mention figuring in the inconvenience of having to change the roll more frequently.

9

It looks like 200 loads is a pretty common size at Sam’s club. What brand detergent was it?

10

Advertising is both legalized lying, as H.G. Wells put it, and institutionalized lying, as Abbie Hoffman put it. As long as statements do not make a verifiably counter-factual claim, they can say almost anything they like - and in many cases they are allowed to make blatant falsehoods that skate the very edge of labeling law.

Still, it’s misleading to blame “advertising” when demon here is “marketing.” Advertising is just marketing’s sock puppet, and the industry loves it when people rise up in wrath at crappy or misleading ads and leave the real problem in the shadows.

11

UP TO
50% More
BASTARDLY

12

This is absolutely one of my pet peeves, not just in advertising but anywhere. I was raised by a very strict grammarian who had a rule that you cannot say “better” or “more” unless you say better than *what *or more than what. This goes for all expressions of degree, such as happier, healthier, wealthier, and wiser.

Just say happy, healthy, wealthy, and/or wise if you can’t make an actual comparison. I hear this everywhere and it makes me scream. Usually in my car where no one can hear me.

Iams used to make a cat food for “less active cats,” and I would always say to myself, “less active THAN WHAT”??? A rock? Paint drying? Grass growing?

There is no peace for people like us who actually read what’s in front of us. But there is The Pit. That will have to suffice.

13

I’m opening a bag of Arctic Shores frozen shrimp. The top right side says, “41-50 shrimp per pound”. But this bag weighs 12 ounces and contains 30 shrimp.

14

That’s not marketing, that’s a standard unit of measurement for shrimp. It’s an indicator of size.

15

My grocery store shows the unit price on the shelf next to the item price; for toilet paper, they show the price per square foot. If your store has that, then they’ve done the math for you.

16

Here at McDonald’s, we guarantee 100% more satisfaction!*

*than eating nothing at all

Than Vinyl Turnip, of course. That’s the going standard 'round these parts, neh?

17

Don’t take away my gripe case! They’re making me do all the calculations on the number of shrimp! :mad:

18

Square footage, my friend. Most toilet paper packages have the square footage (or meters) printed on there somewhere.

That way, you avoid the whole “sheet” concept- one roll may be wider than another, or one sheet may be longer, but the square footage is comparable.

And.. Vita Beata, 41-50 is a shrimp size category- it literally means 41-50 shrimp per pound. So 30 shrimp / 12 oz is right around the upper end of the size category.

I’m not convinced that the weasel words and meaningless claims are completely a shady way to fool the credulous. A lot of it is- it’s somewhat there to avoid truth-in-advertising laws, but a lot is simply to avoid being sued by competitors or consumers for claiming something that’s not true in all cases.

For a hypothetical example, if McDonalds advertised “We sell the tastiest fries.” some competitor would likely file an injunction because some tasting panel found their own fries were preferred. Rather than deal with that, McDonalds will simply claim their fries are tasty or better or something that can’t be disputed.

19

They should fire the guy who came up with 50 more loads.

It’s 250 more* loads!

  • than a bucket of spit.

One thing I think we can agree on is that the OP has 100% less rage than the weakest of pittings.

20

There was a type of beer that was marketing its brand based on being the coldest. What am I missing here - doesn’t any normal liquid (like beer) put in a fridge cool down to the temperature of the fridge it’s in? How is that a selling feature for one brand of beer?

There are bunches of mascara ads that have tiny little disclaimers on them - “Commercial shot with lash inserts.” So what we’re advertising is not the mascara, but the inserts and the skill of the makeup artist, really. That’s such complete bullshit.

I’m pretty sure they are. :slight_smile: