Advertising

"Every year thousands of Americans have their house catch on fire while they're away" a television advertisement assures me. I guess the marketing department that wrote that was expecting me to think, "Thousands? Crap I need to buy THAT alarm! It happens to Thousands of Americans!" But instead I thought, "Thousands out of 300 million... And I should care why?"

Lets say it happens to 3000 Americans a year, because I'm lazy and like nice numbers. That means that the average American faces a 3000 in 300,000,000 chance of it happening to them every year. Which results in a yearly .001% chance.

Imagine if the Advertisement said that? They're clearly banking on it having an effect, does this mean they're betting that the average American doesn't have any idea what the population of the United States is?

Sadly as much as I hate advertising, I would bet on that too. I hate finding common ground.