Bill Bryson writes of a lecture on marketing he once heard contrasting how products were sold in Britain and the United States.

The gist of the program was that the same product had to be sold in entirely different ways in the two markets. An advertisement in Britain for a cold relief capsule, for instance, would promise no more than that it might make you feel a little better. You would still have a red nose and be in your pajamas, but you would be smiling again, if wanly.

A commercial for the selfsame product in America, however, would guarantee total, instantaneous relief. A person on the American side of the Atlantic who took this miracle compound would not only throw off his pj’s and get back to work at once, he would feel better than he had for years and finish the day having the time of his life at a bowling alley.

The drift of this was that the British don’t expect over-the-counter drugs to change their lives, whereas we Americans will settle for nothing less.