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