There is only one who can claim your health and that is yourself.
We live in a world where linking claims to virtually all products and services, has been elevated to an art. How long have we been hearing that the "updated" detergent really does wash better now. Every year a newer version that each time makes the old products pale in effectiveness. This applies to every product touted by marketers, whether or not substantiated with 'scientific' data.
Regulation
When it comes to food products, supervision and regulation is pretty tight. 'Good for heart and blood vessels' really has to be demonstrably substantiated, for example. This is obviously a good thing; you can't just shout something as a food manufacturer. With drugs and health claims, it is even stricter and every claim must be substantiated with solid scientific research.
Basically, there are four things that matter around a product:
- Is it safe?
- What to use a product for; an indication.
- How and how much to use of a product: recommended dosage.
- The claim about efficacy.
The first three are undoubtedly important and useful. The claim about efficacy is where the shoe wrings.
Claim dogma
To truly understand the value of a claim, you must be able to appreciate the underlying evidence. For most people, this is impossible to do. For example, a drug may have a claim that it is effective if it has been shown to work better than a placebo. A placebo is a drug that contains no active ingredients and is given to half the patients for control. So it actually works better than "nothing" then. But that could be 10% or 90%.
So when you read that a drug works for back pain, it may be that this was the case in only 10% of the patients treated. Whereas you would think this would be true for all patients. This nuance is often hard to find either you have to dive into the scientific publication or a medical practitioner has to point it out to you. The nuance is certainly not unimportant but in the world of marketing it is completely lost. With years of marketing experience in the pharmaceutical industry, among others, a number of us speak from experience. The commercial interest does not benefit from nuance, precisely not, it is magnified as far as legally permissible. That this by no means always goes well is evidenced by the billions of claims companies receive annually from regulatory bodies.
And so a (legal) cat and mouse game ensues between commercial parties and regulators. Given the enormous sums of money that can potentially be earned, one wonders who will come out on top....
Unconsciously influenced
But as a consumer, what can you rely on if you have to take the value of claims with a grain of salt?
How can you judge whether that new detergent is really better than your old detergent?
How do you know if a pill will really get rid of your back pain?
Perhaps it's time for a whole new way of marketing. A way that does justice to your ability as a consumer to decide for yourself whether you find something good, useful, tasty or beneficial to your health. Of course you do, but we also all know how you are consciously but especially unconsciously influenced by advertising, by the opinions of others, by authority and by phrases like "scientifically proven.
Bitterballs
A fun example to look at the impact of commercial statements is a blind taste test. Then you let purely your taste determine what you think of a product, without being influenced by the commercial claims that are attached to a product. We recently tested this with bitterballs. And vegetarian and non-vegetarian bitterballs from a well-known brand. The party of eight was not only convinced that they could tell exactly what the vegetarian bitterballs were, but also that the meat bitterballs were tastier. It became a double blind test, so even the dispenser didn't know which was which. What was everyone's surprise that, without exception, everyone labeled the vegetarian croquettes as the meat croquettes and also liked them better. We were surprised. Of course this is not proof, but it is interesting to simply form your own opinion regardless of external influence. And please note, with this we are not saying anything about better or healthier, which certainly does not have to mean tastier. An implicit conclusion that the human brain is quick to draw.
Trust
Back to the question of what to rely on?
The answer is really as simple as it is logical: by trying it yourself and forming your own opinion. It is actually quite arrogant if a supplier determines for you that something is tasty, useful, convenient, useful or good for your health. Therefore, if "everyone" thinks a certain product is great, and you are not happy with it at all, it is a worthless product for you. No matter how much and how loud everyone shouts and how many positive reviews a product has. For you, only your experience and your opinion counts, period. That's marketing anno 2022.
How cool would it be if we stopped (marketing) claims altogether and let the consumer determine value? Then your opinion would not be determined by clever advertising, shrewd marketing tricks, influencers with a smooth talk or whatever. But solely by your own opinion and experience.
Curiosity
That's the way we think at Bengs. We regularly talk to each other about what we can and may, or rather may not, say about our products. At first we saw it as a handicap that we are not allowed to put health claims on our products. But the more we thought about it and realized that we really do take our customers seriously, the more we realized that claims are old-fashioned and outdated. So we have no health claims, we don't want to make any, and we give our customers the opportunity to discover for themselves what our products can do for them. Complete freedom. If someone buys a product and experiences no benefit, we give back the purchase price, without conditions. Your opinion is 100% decisive because your opinion is your truth and we fully respect it.
Curiosity is really all that is needed. Curiosity about your experience. After all, there is only one who can claim your health and that is yourself. We wish you a wonderful journey of discovery!
