Marketers Are Idiots - Dental Floss Edition

I harp a lot at marketers because, well, they are complete idiots. It comes from their abject desperation at having no clue how to effectively communicate information about their products to a public that is overly saturated with ads - and quite frankly, doesn't care. Out of fear, they try to create emotional attachments where there are none, and elevate the importance of their product to that of air and water in the lives of their customers.

I stumbled upon a new level of stupidity recently - in a survey I took sponsored by some marketer of dental floss. Yes, a survey about dental floss!

It started off innocently enough with questions about how often I floss my teeth and what brands of dental floss I use. It got worse - and really stupid - pretty quickly. All of a sudden I'm faced with a grid that has something like 10 different brands of dental floss listed across the top. Down the left side are about 20 questions and I'm supposed to fill in the dot for the brands that best match the statements.

The questions assumed a deep personal involvement with my dental floss brand that I dare say doesn't exist in any sane consumer's mind.

"This brand knows my lifestyle and helps support it."

"I feel confident using this brand."

"This brand gives me a sense of satisfaction."

This brand bolsters my self-esteem."

I'm not making these up. Remember, these are questions about DENTAL FLOSS!

How desperate! How sad! Here are these moron marketers trying to justify the money they spend - or what to spend - to sell America on the idea that one brand of dental floss is better than another - because it "supports your lifestyle".

I can just see it now. Some guy who is scared to death about keeping his job, sharing the "data" with his boss, the VP, showing that their brand is preferred over the next leading brand by 4.6% because of the scientifically calculated satisfaction quotient he developed. He spent 20 hours creating the presentation and all the colorful charts and graphs. His conclusion, if we pump $23.8 million more into the marketing of our brand, we could potentially crack the 5% satisfaction barrier! Then both he and the VP get huge boners.

I put some rather inappropriate comments into my survey at this point, because quite frankly, I had no idea how to answer a question about the emotional satisfaction I receive from using one brand of dental floss over another. Marketers are sad, sorry, stupid people who go to tremendous lengths to justify their existence. And they have no idea how to conduct a proper, meaningful survey.

A more representative survey would have been a lot shorter:

Can you name a single brand of dental floss? Yes/No

No? Thank you for your time.