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Background

Today I bought a box of Pez dispensers with various presidents faces on them ranging from 1825 - 1845. When I flipped the box over, I found the following statement in the description.

PEZ has been an iconic brand for over 50 years. With great tasting flavors and collectable dispensers...

The first sentence of this description prompted me to think about the following...

Question

How did they decide that they should say "over 50 years"? Let me clarify, when a company is say... 55 years... Is it proper to say "over 50 years" until reaching an age of 60? Or should it be a longer period?

Note: PEZ was invented in 1927 but they are saying "over 50". They could easily say over 75. In fact I have seen "over 75" by some companies.

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    Pez has been around for 75 years, but how long has it been "iconic"?
    – deadrat
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 19:38
  • @deadrat I see, I ignored a fundamental part of the statement.
    – Snoop
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 19:39
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    In this case, perhaps. But advertising is the art of misleading consumers while being technically truthful. Generally, when you see "In business over 50 years!", you'll find that the time is closer to 50 years plus one day than it is to 60 years..
    – deadrat
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 20:07
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    In re: how the exact number is decided on, the cutoff has to be some round number, because "over 52 years" would be awkward. So I expect if they'd been an iconic company for over 60 years, they would have said so. Since they said "over 50 years", that means it's more than 50, less than 60, and so they rounded down (you have to round down to use the word "over") to the closest round number.
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 20:50
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    @user116032 so you're saying it's not an exact science?
    – Snoop
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 23:42

1 Answer 1

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"Pez" did not really gain main stream popularity until the 1960's. You could buy a dispenser and 10 packages of candy for 15-25 cents. Refills were a penny until about 1964. Another possibility is the box you purchased was from the 1970's or 80's.

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  • Thank you very much for your answer, but I think we still need to address how the exact number of years is decided on. If you could add that we'll be good here.
    – Snoop
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 20:45
  • @deadrat I think that this answer was meant to be posted as a comment and addresses something you asked about.
    – Snoop
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 21:47

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