The other day I was feeding my "outside cat" - the one I deny being mine despite the fact that he meets me at my car most mornings - and I took a good look at the bag of rather inexpensive (cheap) food. As I did, I noticed some bright yellow writing that said:
"NEW AND IMPROVED TASTE!"
So I got to thinking about this. While I can grasp the concept that perhaps they have changed the "recipe" of the cat food, which may have indeed resulted in a taste that is different from the previous recipe, I'm interested in how they quantify that the taste is, in fact, improved. Who actually tasted the food and declared it to be better? Did they send free samples to a smattering of cats across the country, then contact them to ask their opinions? What type of survey did they use? Was it a fill-in questionnaire or a telephone survey ("Meow once for yes, twice for no.")? Or do they have a panel of cats on staff for just such occasions?
From there I began thinking of those commercials that say things like "4 out of 5 dentists agree". Really? Precisely 80% of the dentists surveyed agreed? How do you get 80% of people to agree on anything? And what about the other 20%? Did they really not agree? Or were they just holding out, refusing to conform? ("I will not support the use of Trident gum!")
So, um, yeah...these are things that I spend time thinking about...
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