We hear it frequently in the marketing and advertising pitches for products and services. “This is a quality product!”
Aaaarrrgggghhhhhh. Are we consumers, by inference, supposed to assume that this implies good quality? Hardly.
Every product, every service, everything has a quality (noun). What is missing from claims like these is an adjective distinguishing exactly what quality is being touted.
- High quality
- Indifferent quality
- Good quality
- Dubious quality
- Fair quality
- Export quality
- Premium quality
- Middling quality
- Top-drawer quality
- POS quality
- Craftsman quality
- Discount quality
You get the picture, yes? So give your product or service a good hard look, and then give us the benefit of a few superlative adjectives — if they are deserved.
Of course, you may not want (or be able, legally) to use high-quality adjectives for your product. So go ahead. Leave them out. But we’ll still know the quality…it’s scrappy.
—Steve Lange
Senior Editor
Palo Alto Software
