# Product not used for intended purpose - biggest marketing hit? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 21, 2010, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223 "2010-03-21T09:13:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/61 "2010-03-22T15:57:06Z")
> [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](#): > > Yachting shoes need to . . . look good. That’s why yachters are dumb. I raced for a season and you know what I wore? When it was cold, I wore whatever I wore on the way to the yacht club. When it was warm, I went barefoot. $100 for “yachting shoes” my ass, creepytoes or not. There were no girls to impress out on the water. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/62 "2010-03-22T16:52:01Z")
The industrial solvent DMSO has been long used as a topical medication for, I think, arthritis and related inflammatory conditions. I don’t know if it has ever been approved for medical use, but it may have been since I first heard of it. ---
**Author:** ![Anthony\_N](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Anthony\_N](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anthony_N)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/63 "2010-03-22T17:08:32Z")
Recently there were reports of a particular brand of Korean snack sausage having sales increase because people were using them as an iPhone stylus. The capacitive screen on an iPhone won’t work with gloves on and the sausages must be close enough to a real finger to be a usable substitute! > **[Korean iPhone Stylus: It's Made of Meat](https://www.wired.com/2010/02/korean-iphone-stylus-its-made-of-meat/)** > > A Korean sausage maker is experiencing a sales boom due to cold winter weather. People are buying CJ Corporation’s snack sausages to use as styluses for their iPhones. The sausage-fingers, which may or may not be called “Max Rods”, conduct... Also, way back when the first iPod model was released with a 1GB hard drive, professional photographers found that it was less expensive to disassemble an iPod to extract the compact flash compatible hard drive and discard the rest than to purchase a 1GB microdrive intended for specifically for cameras. This was short-lived though as the price of these micro hard drives went way down probably due to the fact that so many were required for mp3 players. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/64 "2010-03-22T17:12:42Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > Of course any belief that this actually reduces smell in a fridge is purely psychological. It can only kill acidic smells, and only the ones that come in contact with a fresh surface. Unless your circulating air through your baking soda, it’s pretty much just sitting their taking up space. In my recent experience, I don’t quite agree with you. When we closed up our new house for winter last fall, we discovered that it has a terrible smell (we suspect the house that was sold to us as non-smoking actually had a smoker in it). I tried all the commercial odour eaters, but what has worked here is broad, open dishes of baking soda in every room. I’m not disagreeing with your conditions, but the results have been nothing short of spectacular. Here’s another off-label use - newspaper to clean glass. It works very nicely - spray on your cleaner, and scrub it off with balled-up newspaper. I especially like this for car windows, where you always seem to have a film. ---
**Author:** ![BestWifeEver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/838e76/32.png) [@BestWifeEver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BestWifeEver)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/65 "2010-03-22T17:41:44Z")
When I worked at a summer day care we had deodorant in our first aid kit for bee stings. I think it helped ease the pain but not sure how it did it. I’ve heard of models using hemorrhoid cream under their eyes to reduce the look of bags. Personally, I think I’d rather have the baggy eyes. ---
**Author:** ![McGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f4b2a3/32.png) [@McGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McGeek)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/66 "2010-03-22T17:58:49Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Duct tape as an effective wart remover. OUCH!!! > [@billfish678](#): > > > [@Cisco](#): > > > > It’s more like protection from abrasion and puncture than an actual “shoe.” The things they (well, “we”?) oppose in shoes are mainly immobilization of the foot, padding, and arch support. VFFs have none of those. > > They also prevent pregnancy if you happen to wander into the kitchen 🙂 Um, I realize i am probably being dense, but I do not get this…? ---
**Author:** ![McGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f4b2a3/32.png) [@McGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McGeek)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/67 "2010-03-22T18:02:55Z")
I don’t know if this counts, since it is not a legal use of the product, but I remember hearing that the plastic cylindrical part of a regular Bic ballpoint pen could be used to pick kryptonite U-shaped bike locks, back when U-locks had those types of keys. Oh, and I had lots of friends who knew how to use Bic lighters to open beer bottles. Personally I could seldom get it to work. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/68 "2010-03-22T18:12:37Z")
**astro** said: > [@](#): > > Duct tape as an effective wart remover. It’s effectiveness is debated. > [@](#): > > **Conclusion** In a 6-week trial, duct tape had a modest but nonsignificant effect on wart resolution and diameter reduction when compared with placebo in a cohort of primary school children. Underlining added for emphasis. [http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/160/11/1121](http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/160/11/1121) And > [@](#): > > CHICAGO (AP) — Duct tape’s success at curing warts may have been overstated, according to a new study that raises doubts about the tape’s effectiveness as a cheap, painless treatment. > The tape supposedly works by irritating the skin and stimulating the body’s immune system to attack the virus that causes warts. It earned a place in the medicine cabinet in 2002, when a small study showed it to be effective on children and young adults. > > This time, a study among older adults found duct tape helped only 21% of the time and was no better than moleskin, a cotton-tape bandage used to protect the skin. [http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-03-19-duct-tape\_N.htm](http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-03-19-duct-tape_N.htm) However, the second study used clear duck tape, which is actually different in that it has no rubber in the adhesive, so it may be different than standard gray tape. **billfish678** said: > [@](#): > > The real irony here is duct tape sucks for actually sealing ducts, its original function. False. Not the sucking at it part, but the original function. > [@](#): > > People entranced with the logic of the preceding two paragraphs are mistaken. The original name of the cloth-backed, waterproof adhesive product was **duck tape** , developed for the United States Army by the Permacel division of Johnson & Johnson to keep moisture out of ammunition cases. > > [snip] > > In 1945, a government surplus property ad in The Times offered 44,108 yards of ‘‘cotton duck tape.’’ The first citation I can find for the alternative spelling is in 1970, when the Larry Plotnik Company of Chelsea, Mass., went bust and had to unload 14,000 rolls of what it advertised as duct tape. Three years later, The Times reported that to combat the infiltration of cold air, a contractor placed ‘‘duct tape – a fiber tape used to seal the joints in heating ducts – over the openings.’’ bolding added [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/02/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-3-02-03-on-language-why-a-duck.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/02/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-3-02-03-on-language-why-a-duck.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all) **GreasyJack** said: > [@](#): > > My vote is for the Hitachi Magic Wand “massager”-- one of the most popular vibrators of all time, but as far as I know Hitachi has never actually marketed it as a sex toy. They’ve sold zillions of them over the years and I doubt many of them actually get used on people’s backs. We had one when I was growing up and we used it for backs and legs. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/69 "2010-03-22T18:22:18Z")
Since we seem to be listing minor uses, using denture cleaning tablets to clean hydration systems (those plastic bags with hoses on them that people use hiking and biking). Camelbak, and probably the other manufacturers, sell “cleaning tablets” for the things. The tablets appear to be very overpriced denture tablets, so they figure among the many methods people use to clean their Camelbaks, Platyuses, et al. ---
**Author:** ![MitzeKatze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ad7895/32.png) [@MitzeKatze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MitzeKatze)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/70 "2010-03-22T18:29:06Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > Since we seem to be listing minor uses, using denture cleaning tablets to clean hydration systems (those plastic bags with hoses on them that people use hiking and biking). Similarly, although not really common, denture tablets can be used to clean toilets too. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/71 "2010-03-22T18:31:25Z")
The Eiffel Tower was intended to stand for 5 years, and then be dismantled. It survived because they realized it could be used as a very effective Radio mast. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/72 "2010-03-22T19:43:07Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > The Eiffel Tower was intended to stand for 5 years, and then be dismantled. It survived because they realized it could be used as a very effective Radio mast. Close. The actual figure was 20 years. (It was constructed for a World’s Fair, and almost all World’s Fair buildings are designed to be dismantled at the end of the Fair. Twenty years was an unusually long time.) If it had been five years, it would have been gone since no radio existed in 1894. And its “rescue” in 1909 (alluded to on almost every web site about the Tower’s history) is another simplified myth, like the others I’ve been debunking. People love stories about history and hate complicated realities. But the reality is that Eiffel had been fighting for keeping his Tower for more than a decade before 1909. He’d been arguing for its scientific importance even before financing a radio transmitter in the tower in 1903. A French committee studied the issue of its demolition and in the usual way of committees, decided in 1906 to postpone the showdown, by extending its life to 1915. France was already at war by then, the Tower made a good radio base and observation platform, and nobody was gong to discuss taking it down in the middle of the war. After that it wasn’t an issue. Source: [Eiffel’s Tower by Jill Jonnes](http://www.amazon.com/Eiffels-Tower-Buffalo-Beguiled-Quarreled/dp/B002XULWMU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269286829&sr=8-1). ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/73 "2010-03-22T19:53:08Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > The industrial solvent DMSO has been long used as a topical medication for, I think, arthritis and related inflammatory conditions. I don’t know if it has ever been approved for medical use, but it may have been since I first heard of it. DMSO is extremely effective at penetrating the skin, it’s been knocked around for ages as a possible drug delivery vehicle, but nothing substantial has emerged AFAIK. I have heard that there were concerns about long term use causing cataracts, but a google search indicates that this is an area of dispute. As an aside - DMSO is not especially toxic in its own right, but you need to be careful when using it. It’s such a superb solvent that it can dissolve a huge range of compounds that it might have come into contact with. Given its penetrating qualities, if you spill any on your skin it will go straight into your system taking anything that’s dissolved along for the ride. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/74 "2010-03-22T20:04:25Z")
> [@McGeek](#): > > Um, I realize i am probably being dense, but I do not get this…? There is the old sexist saying that where women belong is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. Well, if you use foot “protection” that won’t happen right? 🙂 I actually saw/heard a professor seriously tell a female student that once, and not just a female student, but a GOOD one. Its a wonder he escaped unharmed… ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/75 "2010-03-22T20:38:26Z")
McDonald’s coffee stirrers / coke spoons. > **[Did Cocaine Users Cause McDonald's to Replace Their Coffee Spoons?](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stirring-response/)** > > Businesses are not well served when their products are associated with illegal activities. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/76 "2010-03-22T20:44:04Z")
Perhaps not quite what the OP was asking for (though hopefully not too far off, either), but [Play-Doh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play-Doh) was originally designed and marketed as a wallpaper cleaner. ---
**Author:** ![Iggins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Iggins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggins)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/77 "2010-03-22T22:30:08Z")
Aren’t Q\*Tips not to be used in the ear for the danger of damaging the inner ear? I understood the message to mean that you should use them to clean the outer ear/ridges only. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/78 "2010-03-22T23:22:36Z")
I was thinking of how cyanoacrylate adhesives have found uses in medicine, to replace sutures. But really that’s the same purpose (bonding two surfaces). So even better, though, in reading the Wikipedia [article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanoacrylate) about them, I learned that cyanoacrylates were originally developed when Kodak scientists were looking for a material suitable for gun sights. And when these adhesives are heated, the fumes are used to pick up latent fingerprints on non-porous surfaces. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/79 "2010-03-23T01:04:05Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Selsun blue shampoo can be used for some skin rashes, it worked for me. I think a Dr. told me to try it. Selsun Blue is _sold_ as a medicated shampoo. It contains selenium sulfide, which is good for dandruff, and I use it for the occasional _tinea versicolor_ outbreak when back in Michigan, where for some reason one would otherwise have to go to the doctor and get a prescription and wait at the pharmacy for such a simple, non-dangerous medicine. (When here, I proudly self-medicate because there’s no nanny-state, but only for non-dangerous conditions.) ---
**Author:** ![KellyCriterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b3f665/32.png) [@KellyCriterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyCriterion)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223/80 "2010-03-23T07:30:20Z")
Thanks for all the great answers guys. I personally think **Kleenex** has to be winning thus far. Thanks, **Exapno Mapcase**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/product-not-used-for-intended-purpose-biggest-marketing-hit/533223.md?page=5)