Pleonastic: Use it three times

On a walk through CVS the other day, I noticed that Pantene has a product called “Fortifying Fortifier.”

But to my disappointment, when I tried to find it on the Pantene Web site so that I could make fun of it today, I learned that its proper name is actually “Pro-V Fortifying Deep Fortifying Treatment.”

In spite of that mistake, I think we can all agree that both names are pretty dumb and the packaging is misleadingly misleading if you know what I mean.

But redundancy must be the new pink because a recent L’Oreal Paris news release saw Pantene’s Fortifying Fortifier and raised:

“L'Oreal Paris Introduces Infallible Never Fail Lipcolour in RED CARPET RED,” reads the headline.

I’m no expert on marketing and branding, but I wonder if the product was supposed to be called simply “Infallible” until a bunch of women in the focus group admitted that they didn’t know what the word meant and complained that it sounded negative. These are probably the same women who said, “Just ‘Red Carpet?’ I don’t know – doesn’t sound red enough.”

And in light of this hypothetical feedback, maybe L'Oreal decided to dumb it down to Infallible Never Fail.

Or maybe L’Oreal just likes their headlines Pleonastic Extra Wordy these days.