A superior product.

I just saw it again in some sales materials that drifted across my desk. Doesn’t it seem to you that the phrase “superior product” really says, “Do not pay attention to this, it’s just marketing”?

I’m not sure I ever see either of those two words outside of an overreaching sales presentation or PR piece.

Flip on the TV at any 2 a.m. and catch the infomercials. You’ll hear “product” over and over again. This product, the product, our product; that’s where you hear it. And the guy with the badly produced, 30-second spots for his computer-learning DVDs constantly calls them “my product.”

And “superior” — that’s a rating bubble you blacken with a number 2 pencil, right? When do you ever, in an authentic conversation — which is what advertising is supposed to be having with viewers, readers, target markets, etc. — hear someone say anything is superior? Possibly, “Your child is a superior student.”

Anywhere else, it’s just one of an unfortunately long list of expressions that are meant to sell me, but instead signal me.

They say, “The following is a paid announcement which no one outside of the marketing department and a group of sadly needy 2 a.m. shoppers pay serious attention to.”

I’ll bet you could list a dozen of those words and phrases. Yet there they are. They survive.