Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Quantity over Quality


"Our yogurt may not be better but it is 33% bigger than a Dannon yogurt!" (at least that is how I interpreted this). First, Colombo yogurts are not that great to begin with; so the fact that they are giving me 33% more actually puts me off rather than thrills me. Not that Dannon are much better. (Btw, what is up with writing Dannon instead of Danone in the U.S.? Surely "Danone" is not that hard to read or pronounce? But I digress.)

I have noticed that companies often tend to employ the "greater quantity" strategy when it comes to U.S. consumers, even when it comes to beating out the competition. Whether it is "Buy 10 sodas for $10" (and I am referring to the equivalent of ten 2 liter bottles) or "33% more than Dannon"... it is all about quantity when it comes to mass consumers. That and the "fat-free" strategy. Everything is branded as "low fat", "no fat" or "fat-free"... so how is it that so many people in the U.S. are overweight? I have never seen anything branded as "low fat" etc. in Europe. Yet, the percentage of overweight people in European countries is definitely much lower. I don't really have answers to these "questions", but just find it interesting sometimes. Honestly, I had forgotten how consumption-heavy U.S. society is.

5 comments:

awthird said...

Heard in a restaurant: "The food's not very good here, but there's a lot of it." Ugh...

eva said...

Over-consumption seems to be the theme. This was sent to me by a co-worker; it puts things in perspective, since seeing is believing:

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=?view=XXX_09NNN/

Hopefully, we'll all start taking notice and be more than "amazed, ashamed and dismayed" by the statistics, and actually do something to change our consumption habits.

DJ said...

awthird: That one comment captures exactly what I had in mind in one simple sentence. Thanks for sharing!

eva: I really liked the idea behind depicting statistics visually. Thank you for passing on. Unfortunately, unless we have hard incentives to do so, very few people will change their consumption habits. Some of the more idealistic perhaps... but I know plenty of people leave the lights on when they don't need to, or leave the tap running while brushing their teeth (just to give two simple everyday examples). I know that I am also still guilty of "waste" although I do consciously try to be better about recycling, reusing, staying away from plastic and being conscious of when I use more than I actually need to. I could go on forever on this topic. The environment (and its degradation) is a topic that I take to heart.

Anonymous said...

Zdrasti Deni!
Syvsem slu4aino popadnah na tvoya blog, popro4etoh niakoi neshta i ti stanah fenka.:-)
Ot vreme na vreme vlizam da vidia novoto tvorchestvo i hop - iznenada - sled dylyg raboten den, pak na dragocennia rabotodatel popadam (Danone - v Evropa, Dannon v USA, za da se proiznasia kakto triabva). I ne se sdyrjah da drasna 2 reda.
Ta po vyprosa, se6tam se za dve nepovtorimi bylgarski frazi "Shamar da e, na avanta da" i "Penilo se ne penilo se, pari sym daval, 6te go yam"
... A tova sa si 33% pove4e yoghurt... nishto 4e ne e Danone. :-)

DJ said...

Eli, radvam se che chetesh i oshte poveche, che pishesh:) za 2ta BG izraza, da, prava si, ne se biah zamisliala... malko a la Bai Ganio :)... iavno i v USA ima dosta bai ganiovci:)