When companies offer instructions as to how much of their product to use, what do you think drives their decisions as to what advice to give?
Theory one: They give the best advice.
Theory two: They give reasonably good advice, erring on the side of you using more product versus less.
I’m with theory two. The quicker you go through their product, the more frequently you have to purchase it, and the richer they get. So they have an interest in your over-using their product. Actually I think I’m generous saying that the advice they give is “reasonably good.”
Dan Myers agrees. Dan put up a great example of this on his website, Blue Monster.
He writes:
When you buy laundry detergent these days, the cap usually serves as a handy measuring cup… Now, if you were a company that wanted to get people to use it up as fast a possible (read: waste as much of it as possible) so you could get some more out of them, what would you do? Well, having a devious mind myself, I’d make the cup bigger that it needs to be hoping people would consistently use more than they need. Especially given that people are more likely than not to fill the cup up to the top.
And that is exactly what you get on with the TIDE packaging. The cap, shown here, has three measuring lines in it: 1, 2, and 3. All of these are significantly lower than the top of the cap.
Furthermore, if one actually takes the time to read the instructions on the bottle, the 1 line is for “medium” loads, the 2 line is for large loads, and the 3 line is not even mentioned!!!
Why is it there if it isn’t mentioned? I say that it’s because for those who actually look at the cup instead of just filling it up, they want to give you the impression that 1 is small, 2 is medium, and 3 is large–thereby getting you to use more than necessary every time you launder. Scam Masters!!!
Dan then goes on to do an experiment with his favorite example of this phenomenon: toothpaste. Click over to see what happens when you brush your teeth with a toothbrush loaded with a big ol’ swirl of Aquafresh!
(Still stolen from here.)
