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Side story about the 4/5 recommendation, this one for toothpaste: apparently Colgate would just ask dentists to list every type of toothpaste they recommended, and 80% of those doctors wrote down Colgate as an option, thus the "four out of five dentists recommend Colgate" ads.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1539715/Colgate-gets-...

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There is/was a whitening toothpaste called Rembrandt. In a competitor's ad they made the claim, "Even Rembrandt can't beat it!". They wanted you to hear that it was better than Rembrandt, but they were actually saying it was equivalent.

Now I'm very interested why 20% wouldn't write down Colgate. Did they know something the others didn't?

They probably just forgot about it.

If someone asked you to write all the brands of X that you've ever used, can you remember all of them, especially if they were nearly equivalent in quality and use case?

I might forget about Aquafresh or Close-up or something, but I'm pretty sure that I would remember Crest and Colgate- especially if I was a dentist. It's like leaving Honda off a list of reliable cars. Hard to believe it's an accident for any reasonable sample size.

All I know is that I buy the cheapest multi pack at costco once a year. My teeth are fine. :D

Are you a dentist?

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