December 11th, 2007
Okay… so today I saw the weirdest commercial . It’s for some kind of cat litter. The catch is, it has odor alert crystals that turn blue when there’s odor.
It took me a moment to figure out why this is so bizarre. I think I have it:
1. If there’s an odor, you’ll just smell it. Colour is irrelevant. If you need to look at it to see if it smells, it doesn’t.
2. Following the logic of the commercial, odor sets off the colour change. How… would that happen? I have this urge to put my hand up and say, “Isn’t it the wetness that changes the colour? And if so, does that mean the poops won’t set off the colour change? And since poops are what smells worst… doesn’t that mean the litter will fail to alert me to the worst smells? So, how will I know if the poo stinks?”
It’s official: if you buy odor alert cat litter for its odor alerting properties, you have officially been suckered by clever marketing.