Fact or Opinion?

Ahem! Initiate “Rant Mode.”

The other day I bought a box of crackers to take in my lunches. After I bought it, I started to read the box, and I started thinking about this little blurb on the front. At first glance it seems about the same as when a store brand compares their Sugar-Coated, Vaguely-Reminiscent-of-Fruit-Flavor, Corn Lumps to Froot Loops. But it really isn’t.

This box is claiming as fact that their crackers are better than another brand. Something about the way they’ve worded this really bugs me. The way they’ve used the “Trivia-Style” phrase, “Did You Know?” just seems tasteless and wrong. It’s one thing for me to buy these crackers and go tell a friend that they are WAY better than that other brand, as that is just my opinion. For the company to brazenly claim superiority using that language, just seems wrong.

I think it’s perfectly acceptable when a company says “According to a nationwide taste-test, 98% of consumers prefer our crackers to their crackers!” but when they just tell you, “Ours are better,” with no qualifiers, no explanation as to what makes them better, That just makes them seem full of themselves, and way too proud. And while it is true that they put a little asterisk at the end of the sentence, which leads you to some fine print at the bottom of the side panel which reads “According to independent taste tests,” that is not enough to remove the arrogant, boastful tone of the statement on the front.

These crackers are good, but I don’t think I’m going to be buying them again unless they either take that phrase off the box, or completely change it.

Rant over.