96 Billion to 1

This week's blog is neither a rant nor a funny, so if you tuned in to either raise or lower your blood pressure I'm afraid this isn't the space for that today.

Instead of providing a chuckle, I need to unravel a mystery triggered by a skincare advert I saw on the telly last night.

Scientists employed by one of the globe's largest skincare and cosmetic companies (I honestly can't remember which one, it could have been LÓreal but it doesn't matter, the only difference between one brand and the other in terms of advertising is the name and livery) have made another amazing breakthrough and voila, user trials prove that "78% of women saw a difference" after slapping this stuff on their faces.  

Yawn.  "So what?" you ask "Your point is?"

My point is the small print insisted by consumer bodies and advertising standards boards. By law, these multi billion $ giants have to reveal their sample size and there it was, tucked away at the bottom of the screen. In this particular case, 44 women were sampled.

Read that again.  FORTY FOUR, out of a possible 3.5 billion women on the planet.  

Google tells me that the worth of the cosmetics and skincare industry is projected to reach $675 billion in 2017.  My rusty maths turns that into a spend of $96 billion per PERSON on planet Earth.  Phew!

An industry that gigantic uses state of the art laboratories and top scientists and specialists, spending millions of dollars in their research race to produce the holy grail - eternal youth.  Well, at least until you pop your clogs cos immortality hasn't been cracked yet.  But the drive to be the youngest looking corpse is worth $675 billion and the big guns want the lion's share of that boodle.

Yet they have so little faith in their own product that they test on a minuscule sample of potential customers?  We have school classes bigger than that sample!  The average McDonalds, a take away restaurant, can seat more than 44.  A sample of 44 people has less than no value in proving the efficacy of this goop.

Think of the multi millions spent on the research and development, the packaging and marketing - it's eye-watering.  To shout about what 78% of FORTY FOUR women reported?  Pathetic!

If I was marketing director of any of these industry giants, I'd send the product to the furthest flung, most desolate regions in the world.  Women in the Aussie outback, Sahara desert, jungles of South East Asia and South America and yes, even women scientists in Antarctica, would be trying my cream.  I'd pick women who had never had the opportunity to slap lotion on their faces ever, which is guaranteed to show positive results after a few weeks and give me the statistics I want - 100% improvement.

Of course, that's a suspect figure so I'd round up a group of my brand's most loyal, first world customers and let them at the new miracle cream.  Naturally, as they are using my current miracle worker, I don't expect amazing results from this batch (after all, my product is the best on the market and delivers what my substantial marketing budget promises, right?!) But that's perfect.  If I make this sample less than 10% of my group, that gives me a realistic statistic to report - 90% of 6000 women saw an improvement...