Well today’s whinge dear reader is about the ubiquitous electric hand dryer – now you might think I’ve got to much time on my hands (sorry, no pun intended), but my point here cuts to the very heart of advertising (well ok, “the very heart” is a bit of an exaggeration).
Point is though, that whilst I have enormous admiration for Mr Dyson, I am not so enamoured by his claims for his Dyson Airblade hand dryer. Yes ok, so I could focus my efforts elsewhere, but hang on and listen to my point a moment…
Dyson claim their Airblade is the fastest hot air hand dryer, which scrapes the moisture off your hands like a wiper blade of your windscreen – ok so far, but it also claims that it will dry my hands in 10 seconds! It is however somewhat an exaggeration!
So bugged have I got with this claim that I’ve taken to timing just how long it does take and before you comment, that my time would be better spent elsewhere – I’m only standing there, drying my hands! The answer in my experience is about 30 seconds and certainly nowhere close to 10 seconds. Indeed most other of the more modern hand dryers also dry in about 30 seconds. Try it!
But, that isn’t the greatest point here, the big thing is… how can the highly regarded Mr Dyson get away with, what is clearly an over exaggerated claim and over exaggerated by some 300%? What advertising standards have to say about it?
Whinge over (for now) but perhaps I’ll write to Messrs Dyson and post you all their response.