November 27, 2007
Our product is the only one you can afford
The misuse of language in business is so common that I usually let it pass but I was provoked this morning on walking into the FT’s office in midtown Manhattan by a poster for Brite Smile, a tooth whitening group (I will leave on one side the mis-spelling of "bright").
The poster is for $399 tooth veneers, and the tag line is: The First Affordable Veneers.
If these are the first affordable veneers, it implies that nobody was able to afford veneers until now. This claim is patently false, as a glance around the gleaming choppers at any Manhattan cocktail party will tell you.
What Brite Smile means, presumably, is not "affordable" but "cheap", just as retailers talk about "value" products, as in "value for money" or . . . cheap. There is a defence for the euphemism "value" in that it is vague rather than clearly incorrect.
It reminds me of the signs you sometimes find on British motorways saying "Delays possible until June 2008" as if, after that date, delays will be impossible. Sadly, that is also false.
I find the “Brite” much more offensive than the “affordable”. I think “affordable” serves to reinforce the fiction that this is a Special Advertising Message from one advertiser specially targeted at you, John Gapper. And that this is the first time that you, John Gapper, have found veneers to be affordable. I don’t think that “affordable” is some kind of synonym for “not a single person, anywhere, ever, would buy it for more than this price”. Indeed, you, John Gapper, could *afford* to buy this post-it note off me for $999 — does that make it “affordable” at that price? I think “affordable” has a subtle role to play in the English language, and that Brite Smile is using it within the envelope of how it’s normally used.
Posted by: Felix Salmon | November 28th, 2007 at 1:41 pm | Report this commentWow. That is an intriguing thought, which I had not considered - that the poster might be aimed at me personally. Or perhaps that Brite Smile placed it outside the FT office on the grounds that the British are known for having bad teeth and could be in the market for cheap veneers.
Posted by: John Gapper | November 29th, 2007 at 4:39 pm | Report this comment