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Bloviating: to you, from me. Chide me if you will. algot@runeman.org

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Sun, 01 May 2011

Advertising Math

An Olay commercial says their competition has 80% water in its product.

Olay is proud to say that they have 25% less water.

What is the amount of water in Olay's product?

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But wait!

Isn't Olay's product still mostly water?

Perhaps water is a valuable ingredient of the product.
Maybe Olay is using math to trick us.
Maybe Olay can charge big bucks for the water. Selling water has worked for Fuji, Dasani, Crystal Springs, Smartwater, etc., etc., etc.

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For those who wish to let me give the math solution (even if the Olay product is a "suspension")...

Take a 100 ml bottle. Fill it with 80% water: 80ml. Fill the rest with "moisturizers" and other fillers and you've got the product Olay doesn't sell.

Take another 100 ml bottle. Fill it with 60 ml of water: that's 25% less water (1/4 of 80 is 20 ml of water which you leave out). Add the moisturizers and other fillers. You've got Olay's product.

Hmmm. I wonder if the other fillers take up more volume than they did before?

Bull image modified from work by Utrescu at openclipart.org