Will This Make Me Look Fat?

Our fun this Foodie Friday begins with an answer to one of the questions I’ve been told never to answer.  No, I’m not going to post pictures of anyone you know in new jeans and have you decide if they look fat.  Instead. I’m going to posit the question as one we might all ask the purveyors of a prepackaged food and make a broader business point.

For today’s victim example, let’s take something that we all know isn’t really the best meal choice – a frozen pizza.  Since it’s Friday and we’re celebrating, maybe we choose to eat the “individual pizza” (yes, that’s in the name) as a treat for finishing the work week.  Reading the label it’s only 770 calories.  Not too bad, until we read on and realize that we’ve been lied to.  Good business?

This “individual pizza” actually serves 3.  That’s not me passing judgement – the label says “servings per package: 3” and it’s one “individual” pizza.  I think we can agree that “individual” is meant to indicate “for one person.”  This 2,300 calorie gut bomb is the equivalent of 18 slices of a competing thin crust pizza but the point isn’t that the food isn’t particularly healthy.  The business point is how the manufacturer – Uno’s in this case – answered the real question:  “Will this make me look fat?”

It’s never a good idea to be deceptive in your marketing.  As the great ad man David Ogilvy wrote: The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.  Too many companies behave as if the opposite is true.  Telling me I can refinance my mortgage without explaining it also means extending it another 30 years is treating me like an idiot and not answering the question: what will it really cost for me to lower my payments each month?  Airlines that advertise low fares and don’t mention the other fees are not answering your question:  what does it cost to get from here to there?

I won’t ever answer the “fat” question and I’m very upfront about why (because any answer is one that gets you in trouble!).  We as businesses need to answer honestly if we choose to answer a consumer’s question at all, and obviously that’s why we’re in business – to answer the question about how to solve a customer’s problem.