New and Improved! “Tide”, “Cheer”, “Oxydol”, “20 Mule Team Borax” (insert product). Better clean! Brighter whites! Use less! You’ll live a longer, better (improved) life, probly lose weight, might even be able to toss yer glasses in the trash bin!
Longer, lower, wider! (cars in the ‘50s). More horsepower, power brakes, power steering, automatic transmissions, electric wipers! More hip room, headroom, visibility. (Ok, fine, some things actually were improvements). But side marker lights? CD players? 37 Cup holders? Sequential taillights? Gimme a break.
Newer, lighter, longer-lasting! More flavor, full flavor, more vitamins and minerals. Bigger, faster acting, Super-size it. Improved in Every Way!! More! more, more umm..., Everything! Just try it! (Just Buy It) You’ll live happier! Improved Too!!
Phooey! Fibs, half-truths, dissembling, equivocations, Madison Avenue fairy tales. Lies, and more lies! Plain old piled higher an’ deeper..., bull-hockey.
Oops! I meant, marketing, salesmanship, advertising, promoting, selling, branding..., commercials! Just inventions to move product out the door (an’ over to your house).
The way I figure it, things can’t possibly have been gittin’ all that “improved” all these years!? Surely not as much as we’re ‘spose to believe? It just ain’t mathematically (chemically?) possible. Is it?
According to my own tediously accurate calculations (ya know how much I love math) there’s been millions of “improvements” to thousands of products (over the past 50 years alone).
I figure if laundry soap had actually been “improved”, all the times it’s supposedly been improved (approachin’ 17,387 times since I was a kid). Why..., our very way of life would’ve been forever altered.
Fer instance, those first few items mentioned above..., they’re just soap.
They clean your clothes (‘cept maybe good ole Oxydol or them 20 Mules?) not sure they’re around anymore, are they? Maybe they “improved” themselves right out of existence (or heaven forbid, they didn’t improve enough?).
Anyway, if those glorified soaps had actually improved as often as they’ve claimed over the years, they’d git your clothes so clean, you’d only hafta wash ‘em once or twice a year!
By now your colors would be so “ultra-bright”, the sunglasses folks wouldn’t even have to lie (oops, “market”) their products. We’d all be wearin’ sunglasses to bed, just to avoid the glow from the laundry room.
Yard sales would be overwhelmed with all the irons and ironing boards bein’ sold ‘cuz of a lack of wrinkles in shirts. Washer and dryer sales would be limited to once or twice a decade ‘cuz we’d only need to wash clothes the week before holidays.
Moisturizing cream sales would nose-dive. What with all that long lasting softness in your T-shirts, socks and underpants, you’d be tossing those unnecessary emollients right into the ole trash compactor. Dry cleaners would simply dry up.
I can foresee the shopping malls goin’ under eventually, since your clothes should last pretty much indefinitely. Only folks botherin’ to buy new clothes would be the fashion conscious and the school kids (they’d still “need” new stuff for school, right?).
Geez, maybe this whole “New and Improved” thing has actually had some valid reasons after all?
Like so many things in our society, I’m bettin’ it was all part of a vast conspiracy. Got started in the latter half of the 19th century, but began really bearin' fruit during the last century?
Oil got discovered. The couple guys who found it knew they could get really rich (improved). IF they could just sell it, Lots of it! But trains wouldn’t use enough soon enough, and airplanes weren’t flying (or invented) yet. They finally had a brain storm.
They’d get some other buddies to invent cars. Then they convinced some in-laws to build shopping malls. That way folks would hafta drive over to the mall to spend money (on clothes) instead of simply strolling downtown to the local dry goods store.
People buying all those new clothes had to keep ‘em clean right? At least for Sunday go to meeting day (and Saturday nights). Lye, tar, or goats milk soap (even plain ole Ivory Flakes) just wouldn’t cut it.
So, the laundry soap folks set out “Improving” (every other week). This worked so well selling “Clean”, that it caught on with Everything Else!
Now I’m not sure, but I’d bet ordinary (un-improved) soap used to clean just fine. Early automobiles moved us from place to place. Most products were fine just the way they started.
One thing I am sure of? Introducing “New and Improved” (over and over). Makes some folks tons of money.
I Don’t Know About You..., When I like a product, I don’t want it “Improved!”
Cal Teeple, founder and sole member of the Observational Cogitation Consortium may still be found three stools down, where he may be ignored, accosted, or contacted. Also At: wayneindependent.com/cal Or At: calteeple@g-mail.com.
