Dodgy advertising techniques

[charlesr]

Recently there's been an ad on for some blackcurrent juice (I think) drink by someone. Clearly not very effective anyway. But the thing that I did bring away is how underhanded advertising can be.

The strapline was something along the lines of "4 times more anti-oxidants than the same amount of orange juice!!!"

Which sounds amazing until you realise that actually orange juice isn't a good source of anti-oxidants. It's known as a great source of vitamin C. If you want anti-oxidants you have a cup of black tea. See? Most of the nation hoodwinked.

Last night I got a pack of frozen peas out of the freezer: "4 times more iron than brocollil!!!" - erm except brocolli isn't a good source of iron. That's spinach.....

Anyone else seen any true but entirely misleading advertising recently? All the "representative of gameplay" ads for games are pretty obvious.

[Dirty Sanchez]

Can't think of any specific ones but you'll notice your kids quoting adverts to you when out shopping.

[charlesr]

Yeah, scary. Whenever ads come on they look at the screen even if they weren't before. Something about the increased volume and the music choices and colours.

[toythatkills]

The immediate one that's called to mind is Listerine's new adverts. "Kills 99% more germs than brushing your teeth!" or something along those lines. Oh, really? So I should stop brushing my teeth because it's pointless and just use Listerine instead? I'm not sure that's the wisest move.

As for underhanded, whenever you sign up for anything online there's always those "do you want to be on our mailing list" boxes at the end, and it baffles me how these are legal. There'll be one you have to tick to be included, one you have to tick to NOT be included, and it's clearly deliberately to confuse people. I signed up for something recently, I forget what, but that little disclaimer actually had a triple negative. I had to read it about five times just to work out if I was not not not agreeing or not.

[Dirty Sanchez]

The increased volume (not sure if it's just Sky or whether it is industry wide) drives my Mrs wild.

[Dirty Sanchez]

I saw a bus recently that stated there was definately a God........ ;-)

[C']

I signed up for something recently, I forget what, but that little disclaimer actually had a triple negative. I had to read it about five times just to work out if I was not not not agreeing or not.

I've seen that recently too.

Please untick this box if you do not want to not be added to our mailing list.

Had to chuckle at the sheer desperation they were displaying just to have permission to fill my inbox with crap.

[abigsmurf]

There are lots around with regards to food

"all fruit strawberry and banana smoothie"
(60% grape juice)

"natural fruit smoothie, no added sugar or sweeteners"
(grape juice again, it's a great natural sweetener)

"added calcium"
(mixed in some chalk)

"xyz yoghurt/cheese has as much calcium as a glass of milk"
(that's because it's concentrated milk. If your kid isn't getting enough calcium there's somthing seriously wrong with his diet, I've never heard of kids lacking calcium in the modern age. Vitamin D deficiency is more likely)

"with added vitamin xyz and iron"
(none of which will be absorbed by your guts and will be pissed straight out)

"one of your 5 a day wholegrain"
(there is no recommended amount of wholegrain, you do not need it in your diet. You can still call something wholegrain whilst removing the part of wheat that's healthy and just leaving in the rubbish)

"new improved recipe"
('improved because it costs us less to make and we can still charge you the same!')

"healthy eating"
(we added more water to the food, increased the salt to compensate then reduced the size of the meal by 50g so we could make it seem low fat and low calorie)

"omega 3 oils"
(don't get me started)

[Hohum]

I think Virgin's advertising of 'fibre optic' broadband is somewhat lame, considering ADSL is also fibre optic at the exchange. The actual advantage is due to having a better variant of copper wiring (coaxial being considerably better for high bandwidth compared to a phone line), but I guess that's harder to market to the gullible.

[cutmymilk]

Virgin's is fair enough. Because it is faster (if you can get it!)

[EJG1980]

One that I noticed recently was some kind of makeup advert that claimed to "Make your eyelashes unbeliveably long and luscious," while in barely visible writing at the bottom of the screen is says "Models in this advert are using eyelash extensions" Yeah, that shows they have a lot of faith in their amazing product!

['Press Start']

The increased volume (not sure if it's just Sky or whether it is industry wide) drives my Mrs wild.

The volume is increased on all tuners because most people leave the room when adverts are on. By upping the volume they can ensure the sounds of the adverts get into your subconscious at least.

[peeveen]

"90% Fat Free!" is one of my favourites, which means it's 10% pure fat.

Mrs Peeveen is mad for make-up, and watches a lot of that QVC rubbish. They have a fantastic "before/after" system where they show you a model before the make-up, and afterwards, so you can see the difference. In the "before" shot, the model is always slightly glum looking and has obviously had a Photoshop grain filter applied, and in the after pic, she's got a full beam smile. I dunno how they get away with it, you can even see the difference in the backdrop. Did they smear make-up all over the wall too?

[MattyD]

The ones with food irk me in particular because they play on people's fears, insecurity and ignorance. The Great British Public eats a tragically poor diet, is being constantly reminded and goaded about it by the media, government health advertising and advice etc, and yet lacks the knowledge to do anything better about it.

Then along comes Product X claiming that this one bottle / packet / whatever contains 1 of your five-a-day. Five-a-day is itself the most misleading and needlessly confusing public health initiative going, so people jump at the chance to think they're 'being good' by guzzling cartons of sugary drinks and eating processed snack bars hand over fist. They end up doing themselves more harm than good and for no reason other than laziness.

[BeyondJumpFish]

Whats that bloody Make up ad for antiwrinckle cream, where that woman gradually turns into Max Headroom?? I think its meant to show her getting "Older"...
Hate it.