01 October 2007

Herbal Essences, 1; NYT Magazine, 0

What do 15% of women do on Valentine's Day?
That's what I read on the back of my sister's Herbal Essences Hello Hydration Conditioner bottle... what can I say, I like to read stuff, even in the shower...

Anyway, it goes on to say,
For the answer, see Hello Hydration Shampoo bottle.
Now I thought that was pretty clever marketing. I was hoping (frantically) that my sister had the shampoo bottle! I found it at the other corner of the shower and the answer was, "send themselves flowers."

That got me to thinking about crossword puzzles and how they don't have the answers in the same issue as the puzzle. I always thought that was to prevent cheating. But, honestly, why would NYT care if you cheat or not. Maybe readers have come to demand that answers do not appear in the same issue; a sort of demand for imposed restriction. A more logical reason is that it gives the crossword puzzler an incentive to purchase the next issue. Another clever idea, though I'm giving this round to Herbal Essences because I've never cared to check my crossword answers from a previous week.

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