Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Ad people ain't too good at math.

(click ad, via James Inspired)
And, neither is Nature Valley, apparently.
They'd need to include 3 bars in each pack, right?
Or, change the percentage to 100%.
Or, put twice the flavor crystals in each bar.
Maths are hard.
Related: Calculus is SEX.

19 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Or confer with the Grammar Cunt, which is also good at math.

9:19 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

are they trying to say that one bar is 100% delicious, so two bars must be 200% delicious?

I-)

9:26 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous,
The key word here is 'increase'.

Not so hot at maths or English, eh?

Love
The Other Anonymous

10:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

> Not so hot at maths or English, eh?

not hot at anything...

I-)

10:36 AM  
Blogger cheeseonearth said...

They never actually state that they *did* increase deliciousness by 200%.

We wanted to increase deliciousness by 200%. So we added another bar. We failed.

Slightly misleading but not a blatant lie. Plus, an average North American who thinks that "giving it a 110%" makes any kind of sense won't notice.

12:39 PM  
Anonymous sledgeweb said...

Maybe they wanted to increase the deliciousness of the sack itself by 200%? So, the empty sack is just as tasty as one of the bars... then they added TWO bars to the empty sack, making it 200% more delicious. Which means... that's a pretty tasty snack... or some terrible granola bars.

1:55 PM  
Blogger cheeseonearth said...

sledgeweb said...

Maybe they wanted to increase the deliciousness of the sack itself by 200%? So, the empty sack is just as tasty as one of the bars... then they added TWO bars to the empty sack, making it 200% more delicious. Which means... that's a pretty tasty snack... or some terrible granola bars.


***

Public education at work. 200% of 0... is 2 bars of shit?

2:09 PM  
Anonymous cath said...

What they actually did was make each bar 50% more delicious. But their marketing people wanted to be able to say "200% more delicious," so they talked to someone in accounting, who told them to put two bars in each pack.

Unfortunately, the copywriter didn't understand that both steps were essential to getting that 200% number.

2:53 PM  
Blogger cheeseonearth said...

What they actually did was make each bar 50% more delicious. But their marketing people wanted to be able to say "200% more delicious," so they talked to someone in accounting, who told them to put two bars in each pack.

***

50+50=200? cool

Compelling argument, cath.

3:03 PM  
Anonymous cath said...

Cheese: I might be confused (not so good at math, either), but here's what I had in mind.

1 bar is 100%
make it 50% more delicious = 200%
then put 2 of them in bag = 300%
300% -100% = 200%

Where have I gone wrong?

3:38 PM  
Anonymous cath said...

Fuck: I got my own story wrong.
*facepalm*

Let's try that again, shall we.

1 bar = 100%
1 bar + 50% more delish = 150%
2 extra-delish bars = 300%

300% is 200% more than 100%

4:00 PM  
Blogger cheeseonearth said...

Fuck: I got my own story wrong.
*facepalm*

Let's try that again, shall we.

1 bar = 100%
1 bar + 50% more delish = 150%
2 extra-delish bars = 300%

300% is 200% more than 100%

***

because you need to subtract 200 from 300, giving you 100

you conveniently omit the previously existing 100% of deliciousness in the original *second* bar

4:24 PM  
Anonymous cath said...

wait, what? i definitely have that original 100% there. it's right in my last sentence: 300-100=200.

Let x= the deliciousness of one bar, before modifications. Assuming that each package begins with only one bar, we can also say that x= the deliciousness of one pack, before modifications.

Making each bar 50% more delicious gives it a deliciousness of 1.5x. Then putting two bars in each package gives each package a total deliciousness of 3x.

And 3x is 200% more than x.

You seem to be suggesting that i need to get to 4x, then subtract x twice.... Or maybe you're just trolling/fucking with me. In which case, well played, as I am thoroughly confused. That said, I am also low-hanging fruit, so don't be too proud of yourself.

4:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jesus *bleep* Christ....This blog's audience is really f*cked. Who the *bleep* cares?? You people have no jobs or what? Get a life!

4:44 PM  
Blogger cheeseonearth said...

On second thought, I am wrong in the above post. Given your example, the deliciousness was increased by 50%, since deliciousness is a non-cumulative property.

If deliciousness was a cumulative property, as you claim and I mistakenly support above, then theoretically you could take, for example, a piece of shit and by adding enough additional shit you could make it very delicious. Non-cumulative properties do not work that way.

4:54 PM  
Anonymous cath said...

OH, cheese... I just reread your comment, and I see what's happening. We're making different assumptions about WHAT has 200% more deliciousness than WHAT. I'm assuming that they're comparing the total deliciousness of their current 2-bar pack to that of their old 1-bar pack. Thus both steps -- increasing the deliciousness of each bar and THEN increasing the number of bars -- are important.

As CR notes, they could have achieved the same 200% increase per package by tripling the number of bars per pack without any improvement in flavour. You know, "this food isn't great, so we're giving you more of it" -- which is standard practice in many restaurants.

You're assuming -- well, I'm confused about what you're assuming. You seem to be assuming they mean a 200% increase in deliciousness per bar -- which, of course, would be a more sensible claim -- but that would mean the number of bars per package is totally irrelevant, and the ad is EVEN STUPIDER than I imagined.

This was fun. Arguing about irrelevant 7-th grade math problems is much more fun than what I'm supposed to be doing :)

4:54 PM  
Blogger cheeseonearth said...

OH, cheese... I just reread your comment, and I see what's happening. We're making different assumptions about WHAT has 200% more deliciousness than WHAT. I'm assuming that they're comparing the total deliciousness of their current 2-bar pack to that of their old 1-bar pack. Thus both steps -- increasing the deliciousness of each bar and THEN increasing the number of bars -- are important.

**

You cannot increase deliciousness of something by adding more of it. It's a non-cumulative property.
To increase deliciousness, you have to change the thing itself, not just have more of it. Simple metaphysics. Sheesh.

For example: You cannot make paint *more* green by adding more of the same green paint. You just have more of it.


***

Anonymous said...

Jesus *bleep* Christ....This blog's audience is really f*cked. Who the *bleep* cares?? You people have no jobs or what? Get a life!

**


I'm an unemployed latte-sipping liberal on welfare. Granola and granola-related products are extremely serious business for me and my comrades. So, fuck off.

11:37 PM  
Blogger copyranter said...

Anon 4:44:

What we have here is one person commenting as two, or more, people.

4:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hiliarious. I remember thinking the exact same thing when I picked up the rag on my morning commute.

11:55 AM  

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