I Shouldn't Have To Choose

Genuinely confused by the need for multiple types of “Total” toothpaste

At least Jeremy has good oral hygiene today.  That's a step or two up from usual.  

So I was in the grocery store not long ago, and I remembered that I'm running low on toothpaste.  It's like I use that stuff every day or something.  As you may or may not know, when you get to the toothpaste section of the grocery store, you're left with a dizzying array of products to choose from, and they all do ever so slightly different variations of the same thing...clean teeth.  While I usually obscure the names of major companies mentioned on the blag here, I'm going to go ahead and invoke fair use for satire and single out one of the companies, because I actually use their product and hope they won't sue me...I also can't think of a good way to obscure the name and still get my point across.  Keep in mind, loyal readers, I'm not asking you to not use this company's product...I'm just mocking their marketing.  The toothpaste of choice in the Jeremy household is Colgate.

I'm going to be out of a job here very soon, I can sense it...

A Fairly large portion of the Toothpaste Wall at my local grocery deals with Colgate's line of "Total" products.  When they initially created the Colgate "Total" toothpaste, I think we were all under the impression that it did everything you'd expect a toothpaste to do...in effect, the TOTAL of toothpaste technology.  Boy would you be wrong.  Upon further review, Colgate's line of "Total" products includes the following:  "Total Advanced Whitening," "Total Advanced Deep Clean," "Total Advanced Fresh + Whitening," "Total Advanced Gum Defense," "Total Clean Mint," "Total Whitening," and "Total Mint Stripe."  This apparently will soon be augmented by "Total Zx Pro-Shield Plus Sensitivity."  

How in the name of crap can you have so many different varieties of Total?  Total means everything!  If all of these Total products have different features, then none of them are, in fact, total.  By Colgate's own tacit admission, a toothpaste justifiably called "Total" should include, at a minimum, whitening, deep cleaning, freshness, gum defense, clean mint, stripes, Pro-Shield (Whatever that may be), and sensitivity.  Much like other products which use qualifiers and moved to superlatives too quickly (I'm looking at you, Droid Razr Maxx HD), I think Colgate jumped its own gun using "Total" for their toothpaste before they realized what Total truly meant.  They just hope we don't notice the fact that we're not getting the totality that we're paying for.  Apologies to Colgate, (and keep in mind, I just bought a tube of your stuff) but I am forced to Call Bunk on your Total Toothpaste.