OT - Pet Peeves Thread

[Cincydawg]

So, turning left at a busy intersection, and I'm say six cars behind in the turn lane.  Left turn signal comes on, and lead car doesn't move ... for agonizing seconds, then it slowly makes the turn, and the car behind is slow to move, finally everyone gets moving and ... you know the rest of it.

The left turn signals here usually start flashing yellow except at very large intersections, but often you can't turn because of oncoming.

[utee94]

They have to contrive some kind of notional ad that appeals.  I've been in on some of these efforts.  It's pretty amazing how much goes into creating a tag line for a commercial product.  They do multiple focus groups.

The television show Mad Men did a great job of highlighting this activity within the ad agency.

[MikeDeTiger]

But the dumb among us will hear that ad and want Tide pods because they just MUST be a much better value. It's going to cost you more every time you wash your clothes, but at least you aren't wasting your money on water!

Bruh, you just don't understand.  Did you even hear the part where it has less water?  

Less water, brad!

Tide pods are better, science says so.  

[MikeDeTiger]

The television show Mad Men did a great job of highlighting this activity within the ad agency.

Back when marketing was one of my double majors, there was a refrain they repeated to us, "Building a better mousetrap doesn't mean more sales."  The point being that the objective quality of a product was not nearly as important as its branding and messaging.  They made me read a bunch of boring studies that supposedly proved that.  

There was an entire managerial theory built on effectively ignoring the quality/effectiveness/R&D and focusing mostly on marketing.  

[Cincydawg]

The television show Mad Men did a great job of highlighting this activity within the ad agency.

I was dealing off and on with our Marketing Department, who would hire the actual ad agency.  Most of those guys had MBAs from Stanford etc. and most were pretty sharp.

It was pretty fun at times, one group even offered me a job there doing something, I forget what now.  My director wanted me to take it, for obvious reasons.

[MikeDeTiger]

Tide pods are better, science says so. 

Speaking of, a pet peeve is when people say "Science says...."

No it doesn't.  "Science" doesn't say anything.  Scientists might.  Science can be broadly referred to as 1) a set of facts in an area or group of areas, or 2) a philosophical method by which causes and effects can be inferred.  The method doesn't do the inferring, though.  And the facts don't generally assemble themselves into a coherent narrative or cause-and-effect chain.  People do that, and it's why you can have multiple learned and reasonable people reach various conclusions while looking at the exact same facts. 

Most people who say that think they are meaning the first definition, but usually they're not citing a fact, they're citing an implication of a fact, often arrived at incorrectly or with incomplete knowledge.  Patients love to say stuff like "Well I wouldn't ever take that medication, the science on it says--"  

Ma'am, let me just stop you right there.  Science didn't say anything.  An article, friend, journalist, the internet, somebody, said something about it and may have vaguely referenced a genuine scientifically observed fact in the process.  But the science didn't tell you whatever is about to come out of your mouth.  

[FearlessF]

the science keeps evolving and changing - as does marketing

[FearlessF]

We used to make powdered detergent back in the day, with phosphate builders, nothing today can match that product.

my mother and grandmothers loved that powdered Tide with phosphates
I may have a box in the basement somewhere

why don't they make it any longer?
Something dangerous or just worked too well?

[Cincydawg]

Some of the best detergent marketing way back was "whiter than white", which actually has "science" behind it.

[Cincydawg]

my mother and grandmothers loved that powdered Tide with phosphates
I may have a box in the basement somewhere

why don't they make it any longer?
Something dangerous or just worked too well?

The phosphates were gradually banned because of eutrophication of waterways, or so folks thought.  Fertilizer runoffs is more relevant.  Making powdered laundry detergent is capital intensive, you need these huge "spray dry towers" that are expensive to build and operate.  

[847badgerfan]

THE science.

Follow it.

also

Follow THE data.

[Cincydawg]

I was in a meeting with one of our lobbyists who was trying to keep Virginia from banning phosphates outright.  He related he told on legislator "Nitrogen is the limiting nutrient here."

The legislator responded "Yeah, but I can ban phosphates, I can't ban nitrogen".

The writing was on the wall.  The facts were nor relevant.

[MrNubbz]

Tide pods are better, science says so. 

Speaking of, a pet peeve is when people say "Science says...."

No it doesn't.  "Science" doesn't say anything.  Scientists might. 

Are you arguing with yourself?  Nothin' to do at work? 

[OrangeAfroMan]

the science keeps evolving and changing

Too many people think of this as a reason to not follow it.