Centrum Silver

My husband and I recently saw a commercial on television about your Centrum Silver product. The words of the commercial were:

My wife takes Centrum Silver. I’ve been on the fence about it. Then I read an article about a study that looked at the long-term health benefits of taking multi vitamins. They used centrum silver for the study. So…I guess my wife was right. Centrum: always your most complete.

A prior formulation of Centrum Silver was used in a long-term study evaluating the health benefits for men 50 and over.

This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any diseases.

We just have a few questions.

1) What study was done? What were the results of this study?

2) How does the character “reading an article about a study” show the wife was right?

3) The study was evaluating health benefits for men and I can only assume the character’s wife is a woman. So what does the wife taking Centrum Silver have anything to do with the study?

4) The wife was right? Right about what? The study was about men. Was this couple arguing about taking multivitamins? Was the husband taking a different brand or not any vitamin at all?

5) They have conducted scientific studies on the effectiveness of psychic healing. The fact that they conducted a study does not validate psychic healing as an effective health benefit. Simply doing a study using Centrum Silver does not validate Centrum Silver. The results of the study are what are important.

6) See how your story if full of holes???

P.S. I read an article about a study that looked at the long-term benefits of companies having sections on their website for consumers to send comments through e-mail. I won’t tell you the results of this study, but I am still encouraging you to allow customers to contact you through your website instead of just phone or snail-mail.

Pop Weaver

I was highly disappointed today to discover that there are now only 22 bags of popcorn in a box instead of 24 and that the bags are smaller, and yet the price is the same. I find this an insulting and rude thing to do to your customers. Also, a max of 350 characters in the comment field is also insulting and rude. I'd say more but I have run out of

***Side note*** I was quite surprised at the 350 character max on the website. With all of the letters I write (most of which are sent through company websites), it was quite odd to be given such a small character limit. I was going to say a lot more including how much I love their popcorn, how I like the oil they use that makes the popcorn less fattening and how cost effective it has been (up to now - I'll have to research if it's still the best value for me). But I guess they didn't want my positive comments; they wanted me to get straight to the point of complaining. Their loss.

Arby's (And Reply)

One of your commercials really annoys me. Every time I see the commercial I end up yelling at the TV because it annoys me so. The commercial creating such annoyance is the one where the guy is quizzing people about Subway's meat and where they think it is sliced. The people in the commercial are unpleasantly surprised when they find out the meat is sliced in a factory instead of in the back of the store. I don't understand why meat sliced in a factory is such a bad thing. I would much rather have my meat sliced in a factory where regulations are easier to enforce instead of in the back of the store by teenagers who pick their noses and pop their zits. Also, it sounds like Arby's has to buy many unnecessary meat slicers. That doesn't sound time or cost efficient. Is that why I can get 12 inches of sandwich at Subway for the price of 3 inches of sandwich at Arby's.
One final anecdote to emphasize my point:
My husband and I were at Subway today. As we are waiting in line, we observe an employee opening a vacuum sealed bag of lettuce to restock the lettuce bin on the line. I commented to my husband: It's nice to know the lettuce comes vacuum sealed. My husband replies: Because you know it isn't sliced in the back? My reply: YES! I wasn't thinking that, but YES - cleaner and uniformly sliced. But I was really thinking about how nice it is that air can't get in to make the lettuce gross and brown.
There are many benefits to NOT having the meat sliced in the back. I really don't care too much that your meat is sliced in the back. But it really bugs me that you try to bring Subway down by making something they do that is great sound like it is a poor choice.

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Reply:

Dear Ms. Baarz,

 

Thank you for sharing your feedback on our new advertising campaign, Slicing Up the Truth About Freshness. We appreciate your concern and want to assure you that we are not making any claims to freshness.

 

We are not claiming that we taste better than Subway, or that they have low quality products. Instead, we’re only celebrating one of the staples that Arby’s was founded on – that we freshly slice meat in our restaurants every day. Not all restaurant chains, including Subway, can make this claim.

Again, thank you for your feedback.

 

Sincerely,

Arby’s Customer Relations

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My notes:

"...we are not making any claims to freshness..."

I take that to mean that they can't make any claims to freshness or else they would. So I assume that while the meat is freshly sliced, it is not actual fresh meat. Not very reassuring.

"...we're only celebrating one of the staples that Arby's was founded on - that we freshly slice meat in our restaurants every day..."

Is that worth celebrating? Am I the only one that doesn't care?