Oxfordstudent
By Fay Schlesinger
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Glue gun or hairdryer proved to be a much more popular game in the office than strip poker
We live in a world of litigation, pedantry and plain stupidity. The recently proposed student contracts, the formation of an online Apostrophe Protection Society, and the existence of Jade Goody are three random examples which testify to this. But only in the domain of marketing and consumer rights are these three elements impressively or depressingly combined.
The alleged necessity for student contracts is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the litigation culture seen to be talking over the West and, especially, America. Suing is no longer a last resort in serious miscarriages of justice, but rather a first port-ofcall for trivial mistakes which can be blamed on someone else.
Examples of ‘loony lawsuits’, as the Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch puts it, include a drunken party-goer trying to sue police for not arresting her before she later drove home; an inmate who blamed prison food for his flatulence problem and proceeded to sue the state; and of course the woman who put her pet dog in a microwave to dry. As we all know, pet explodes and owner successfully sues the microwave manufacturer for failing to include a warning not to place small animals in microwaves.
Disappointingly, the latter is apparently just a myth. The recent incident of John Kiel Patterson filing a lawsuit against Apple and their iPods is, however, genuine and illustrates my point that things have gone a bit far. Patterson claims that, despite each iPod carrying the warning ‘Permanent hearing loss may occur if earphones or headphones are used at high volume,’ this is not sufficient.
It appears that he has not experienced any hearing loss himself but believes that the product is defective all the same as it does not give precise details of what constitutes ‘high volume’. Yes, I see where he is coming from. But no, that does not justify such unnecessary pedantry; if he hasn’t suffered, what’s wrong with pointing out the oversight to Apple and leaving it at that? At some point in the 90s, people became enlightened by the realisation that moaning makes money.
As well as being an expression of sexual pleasure, and a self-involved way to pass other people’s time, moaning and its litigious embodiment, suing, gets you rich. But businesses fought back. Obviously, companies are eager to cover their arses as comprehensibly as possible, but at times their methods border on the ludicrous. Firstly, there’s the spate of state-the-obvious labels appearing on food products and household appliances. These mostly revolve around the word ‘may’.
The label on KP Nuts, ‘Warning: this product may contain nuts’ is a prime example. I called the careline (why, oh why, is there a careline for peanuts?) and politely asked whether they could send me a pack not containing nuts as, due to a recently discovered and potentially fatal nut allergy, I wanted to take advantage of that ambiguous word ‘may’.
The uninterested woman I spoke to pointed out other nut-free products, expressing her regret that as yet they do not manufacture nut-free nuts. I was left feeling disappointed and ostracised by my invented malady; she hardly sounded elated either obviously the mundane and futile career path was getting her down.
KP, like Tesco, whose milk reads, ‘This bottle may contain milk’, is forced into such pedantic labelling to avoid the wrath of the two most dangerous groups (in terms of the risk of hefty pay-offs): those prone to premature death, and the fastidious with time on their hands. It’s no wonder that free-phone product carelines yield bored, pissedoff, middle-aged workers.
The Hula Hoops representative was far from sympathetic when I called for some good old TLC after pigging out on seven packets of the crunchy rings at nine o’clock in the morning. Her tone implied she’d heard such rubbish before. The comment “Not again… This isn’t a genuine call, is it?” only confirmed it. So all I’ve discovered so far is that companies have to be anal in response to anal customers, and that carelines aren’t very caring.
So what? Well, some companies are making a stand against the ridiculousness of product labelling, whether they’re doing it consciously or not. Catering for our alleged lack of common sense, or basic hygiene, items such as a digital thermometers carry warnings like, ‘Once used rectally, the thermometer shouldn’t be used orally.
Hairdryers are particularly perilous: ‘Never use hairdryer while sleeping,’ warns one, while a heat gun which reaches temperatures of 1000 degrees bears the label, ‘Do not use the heat gun as a hair dryer.’ These are examples of manufacturers unwittingly humouring us into seeing the errors of our ways. But some enterprises are taking a more, well, enterprising approach.
Innocent Drinks, based in London, have set up a ‘banana phone’ making no pretence of chivalrous or girly ‘care’. And their smoothies seem pretty down to earth when it comes to warnings and nutrition information. Even if they were pedantic, it would probably go unnoticed due to the marketing strategy they’ve adopted: in place of earnest but pathetic ways to both avoid litigation and patronise consumers, Innocent opt for weird content and an ironic tone and it works.
Their seasonal smoothie says, ‘If you’re still worried the recipe doesn’t sound wintry enough, feel free to add a horse chestnut or some snow.’ And you’ll be glad to know that the mango and passion fruit one emphasises, “We’ve always prided ourselves on making drinks that are both concentrate-free and chicken-free.’ The company has had a good response so far, especially from students who call the banana phone with suggestions.
Innocent’s approach is reminiscent of Nestlé’s ‘It’s not for girls’ Yorkie bars, which laugh in the face of political correctness and associated -isms in marketing and that’s what we should all do. If there’s a genuine problem, deal with it. If not, laugh at other anal pedants who, according to Freud, should’ve been allowed to poo only when they were good and ready. Or, if all else fails you could, as my latest smoothie suggests, just lie back and think of crab mayonnaise.
16th Feb 2006
