Truth in Numbers: How Far Would You Go?
As I was driving to work this AM, I caught a radio spot for a local ski area, Mount Sunapee (NH). The commercial claimed that Mt. Sunapee is only 90 minutes from Boston. I immediately thought, "this is BS, Sunapee’s gotta be at least two hours from Boston". In fact, the Mount Sunapee web site has a table with drive times from several New England locations (and Albany, NY – go figure). In addition, it provides links to Google maps depending upon your route to the mountain. I clicked on the first link, changed Contoocook, NH to Boston, MA and the result said "about 1 hour 55 minutes". That’s not 90 minutes, in fact it’s 28% longer. Is the fact that the claim won’t match the experience a problem?
My gut reaction was "Yes, this is a problem. People will be disappointed or annoyed." Yet, every ski area around here claims to be just down the road. Loon, Waterville, Canon and Killington all claim to be closer to Boston, or wherever, then they really are. And, I’ve never heard anyone say "the conditions were great, the apres ski was delightful, but it took me 25 minutes longer than advertised to get here." Mount Sunapee stretched the truth a bit, but got me on the hill by:
- Advertising that Sunapee was close to me
- Knowing that I’d go to the web site for directions
- Figuring once I was "mogul committed" that another 25 minutes wouldn’t be a barrier
Smart. So, at what point does exaggerating a number in an advertisement cause a problem…and how far would you go?
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January 24th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
You would think this type of truth-stretching would be commonplace in high tech, where a data sheet on a hardware platform or a web site on a software product could misrepresent the true capabilities of a product. But for the most part, companies seem motivated to get it right, especially when the numbers appear in print. Maybe it’s because they know the web is watching, and all it takes is one blog entry or YouTube video to expose the truth.