Jakub Pawlowicz – Thoughts on life

One of my hobbies is finding patterns. Thanks to my education I’m very sensitive of this kind of meta information and I find looking for “yet another pattern” very enjoyable. This post is about one of them found recently.

Here’s my story. I had a minor skin allergy recently, so I went to the pharmacy and they sold me a medicine. So the label on the box said to apply it 3 times a day for 5 to 10 days. That’s what I did the first day, but as my skin problem was gone after first day I decided to apply it only once more and give up. Not a big deal, but the way I were supposed to use this medicine made me think of how companies promote overuse. 

So here’s my question: who decides on usage recommendation – manufacturer specialists’ (pharmacy department in this case) or a marketing department? Probably both but I’m perfectly sure the inspiration comes from the marketing side. It may go this way:
- Marketing: How much shouldn’t hurt?
- Doctors: 1 gram 3 times a day.
- M: For how long.
- D: Let’s say 10 days. 
- M: OK. Let’s put 5 – 10 days to make people think our medicine is for various conditions (putting a range always helps!)
- D: That’s fine. Go ahead.

What about other goods? Did you ever think why in TV ads they show us how to use advertised things? One of the reasons is to show how much should we use. But it’s rather “how much they want us to use” rather than “how much is really necessary”. Think how much detergents they put into washer, how much toothpaste on the toothbrush, how often it is needed to change blades in your electric razor, or how often you need to completely replace the car oil? Oh, that’s a cool story! One of the Castrol former executives admitted he had never changed oil in his car even if it “should” be changed every 15,000 kilometers! So they know they are selling lies to us, but can’t admit that in public. Why? Because of marketing (and PR) who needs us to believe in these lies. 

And it brings me to the point of this post: marketing brings overuse! Selling more is consuming more and it is wasting more. Marketing is not green. The only reason for a company to be green is actually to make more money!

It took me some time to notice this but some time ago I unconsciously decided to consume less. I didn’t change my three-year-old electric razor blades even once (should be changed twice a year), I use a less toothpaste than advertised, less detergents, half the contact lenses solution, or less gas in my car. My dad said recently it was the last time he replaced oil in his car. 

There are more like us. Are you?