You know, consumers are pretty dumb. I get a kick out of products that are magically revived as new and improved by some insignificant modification, and suddenly there’s a whole new market out there.
For example, summer windshield wash. Like, do we really need a summer version of what presumably is IPA water and colour.
Or, what about the 37 different variants of Visine now?
And do we really need disposable razors with 4 blades? I predicted this after they went to 3!
It boggles the mind the useless tweaks that the marketing folks keep spinning upon us.
Tide with bleach, Tide with Febreeze, Unscented Tide, Regular Tide, Tide with Downey, Tide for Cold Water, Liquid Tide, Powdered Tide… holy crap!
What are your favourite dumb product gimmicks intended to sell more to the masses?
Of course this could be a IMHO thread, but it’s pretty mundane and pointless too.
My watch recently broke and my birthday is coming up so I asked for another one for my birthday. In the meantime, I went to CVS and bought a digital watch for $8. It came with a lifetime guarantee. I didn’t care much about that but I did see the terms of the warantee when I opened the package. It said that the watch would be evaluated for replacement or repair as long as I mailed it to them with $6.95 for return shipping and handling. Damage to the band, face, bezel, and battery were not covered nor was damage caused by accidents, water, fire, or neglect. That is a fine deal they have going.
I’ve never been able to figure out the pickup truck ads that show the vehicle doing something amazing, like jumping the Grand Canyon, and then they have the little disclaimer at the bottom (“Professional driver on closed course. Do not attempt.”) Why are you advertising the truck doing something that I really can’t do in it myself? That’s supposed to make me want to buy the truck?
Any other beer geeks wonder where you get washer fluid made with India Pale Ale?
Dishwasher soap. First it was powdered, then you needed (needed I say) that liquid stuff in the little compartment, then the soap came in a brick like thing, then a brick with the liquid stuff embedded in a pearl, now it’s liquid and I don’t know if we still need the other liquid stuff, and they’re all labeled different so I can’t figure out which one is the better value.
I suspect we’ll soon see a “new” powder form of dishwasher soap.
>This one I slightly disagree with. For those of us with very sensitive skin, the unscented detergents are a must.
Ditto, cubed, and especially for those with respiratory ailments. Actually, I think the scented versions are the dumb ones. Why not just douse yourself with horrible, acrid perfume? Seems like most people muddle on somehow with that approach anyway.
Liquid automatic dishwasher detergents are a whopping foolishness. I know a chemist who spent quite a long time working on this project. The idea was, homemakers will think, “What a clever idea”, and buy the crap. However, part of the beauty of powdered dishwasher detergents is that they can incorporate ingredients that vigorously attack food residue, but also attack each other. Since the powder is dry in the box, this mutual attack never happens until the product is being used. Then, although the ingredients do disarm each other fairly quickly, they also dissolve a great deal of food residue very nicely before becoming disarmed. The liquid version required that they search out ingredients that still sort of help with the food even though they have weeks in advance to attack each other, and it only sort of works, and requires more expensive ingredients, and so on.
I told Mrs. Napier about this. She only sort of listened, and then said, “Liquid dishwasher detergent. What a clever idea. I have to try some.”
Shampoo additives. Jojoba, ylang-ylang, pro-vitamin B5 (and since we’re here, the use of a term like “pro-vitamin” as if it means anything – it’s fucking pantothenic acid), citrus extracts, honey, shea butter, beer, coconut milk, yak’s milk, cactus blossom, extract of feline anal sac, lark’s vomit, irish stew, whole puppies – every year or two there’s some new thing to stick in your hair that’s supposed to make it shinier, softer, more manageable, self-aware, and smell more like like God’s own nasal blessings than the last one.
Cereals aimed at kids. There are, what, maybe 3 or 4 actual variations in ingredients here, but every new shape and marshmallow is a whole new product. This is especially egregious with character licenses where, if any effort at all is made to make the cereal look like anything you might recognize in the movie/cartoon the character is from, the result is invariably nothing at all like anything you might recognize in the movie/cartoon the character is from except on the box itself.
And when they do show the musical chairs in the parking lot, they tell you not to attempt that either. I was impressed by the Tundra that pull the freight container up and out of the canyon–that they claim is real.
I’m suspicious of anything that wants me to use the product every day, since it just screams “Use a lot of this so you have to replace it often”. Mostly shower sprays like the Scrubbing Bubbles spraying rotator thingie.
You’re right, but the point of the OP still stands I think.
Scented and unscented detergent. There. Two products. Just two. That’s all that is really needed. Not the 3,000 variations that each and every brand currently offer.
What kills me is 235 varieties of OTC cold medicines that all have some combination of the same five ingredients.
My husband accidently bought some scented dryer sheets the other day and I could smell them, still in the unopened box, the instant I walked in the house. We bagged them up and stuck them out in the garage until we could take them back to the store. I noticed that the box actually had a scent chart that indicated this version was only a 3 out of 5. So that means they sell 5 versions of dryer sheets with different levels of stinkiness.
Toothpaste. I want some fluoride and a sensitive tooth formula (because I have sensitive teeth, and it actually does seem to help). I don’t need it to do my taxes for me.
Although, I have to admit, I would love a flavour that didn’t have mint in it. I’m all minted out.
Diamond Shreddies is a clever take on marketing crapola, in my opinion.
Ooh - one of the best ones I’ve seen - antiperspirant with moisturizers. Is there anyone on the planet who is having a dry skin problem in their armpits?* I live in Calgary where it is so dry we scratch our epidermises off every winter, and my pits are still nice and moist. And some antiperspirants have sparkles. Oh yeah, there was a niche that was waiting to be filled.
You know what is getting up my nose, thinking about it? We can have 35 types of toothpaste and pitstick, but we can’t have a decent, permanent hair removal method for women. Bastards.
*I hesitate to say that, because someone is going to come in and say, "Well, actually, all my family has congenital Armpitdryitis. Thanks for nothing, jerk. :mad: "
“Coke Zero. Now in a new black can, but still the same great product!” And the ad had a can in the new black can, half out of an unzipped old silver can.
I saw this a few weeks ago and thought, “Man, their sales must be dropping. They have to do something desperate but inexpensive to renew peoples’ interest.”
Utter hyperbole. Proteins are all made of amino acids. But of course, to a marketing goon, the word “acid” doesn’t strike quite the right chord with folks who, when confronted with such a word on a bottle of shampoo, have visions of Maj. Toht when he opens the Ark of the Covenant. But protein, now that’s a good thing. Protein is good for you. And “amino” sounds like, scientific or something. It doesn’t matter that no one, ever, anywhere, has ever said “amino proteins.” Who’s going to know that? Look, just buy the damn shampoo, there’s a bunch of shit in it and it smells like rosebuds and kitty farts.
