I am getting really upset with advertising these days. There are so many that so obviously obfuscate the truth or outright lie. I wonder how the federal government is allowing them to subvert or ignore the truth in advertising rules.
The many "male enhancement" ads started this annoyance. If you go to the Better Business Bureau and look up any of these companies, they each have a list of complaints against them a mile long. These led to a general annoyance with all of the ads for pharmacy products on TV with their 10 seconds of advertising and 20 seconds of side effects and warnings.
Next came the Mac versus PC ads. While entertaining and usually funny, I get consistently annoyed with the half-truths and sometimes outright lies that Mac uses against PC. I think Apple makes a good, quality product and that they could make similar gains in sales from touting those instead of lying about what PCs "can't" do. The same week that they release the ad touting how many people are going back to XP is the same week I read an article from a reputable computer magazine showing the big gains that Vista is making. Who is right? The ads about how Macs inherently can edit video, find all of your pics/videos, and record TV seem to ignore that Windows has had those features as part of the OS since XP and that the Media Center in Vista is getting pretty high praise from many critics in the industry. And the fact that (certain) Macs run Windows faster than standard PCs-- well, yeah-- ever since Apple had to concede that they should produce Macs using Intel processors, they can A) run Windows and B) can design and produce machines that run Windows fast. And the one touting Leopard's features over Vista? Well, many pundits I've read comment that a lot of those same features appear to be knockoffs of what Vista did-- but Apple doesn't mention that in their ad. I wonder why Microsoft doesn't counter these advertisement. I guess Microsoft is content with their overall 80% market share. But that still doesn't help me with my annoyance!
My current annoying favorites are the ones for paycheck loans/debt consolidation and one for a new weight-loss product soon to be released. One of the loan ads has the announcer say that loans are "quick and affordable" yet, right there on the screen in the explanatory 'fine print' it says that loans start with a 99.99% interest rate for the period of the loan (and most of these places loan money for weekly or semi-monthly periods). How is owing double what you were loaned considered "quick and affordable" -- quick to poverty and affordable if you don't mind selling an internal organ! The weight-loss pill actually says "And we couldn't say it on TV if it wasn't true!" Just the shear fact they say that makes me wonder. The product is the miracle weight loss pill from Europe that is "proven" to be effective-- yet the fine print says that the item has not been submitted to the FDA for evaluation. How is it proven effective if it has no proof to point to?
I also hate the anti-eHarmony ads that I'm seeing. They show people complaining about being "rejected" by eHarmony-- except, as a former member of that dating service, I know for an absolute fact that you cannot be rejected. Your answers to their questions may mean you don't get immediate results from their database of potential mates, but that is far different from the way these ads use the term "rejected."
So far the political ads have been relatively tame. However, the Indian Gaming ads have really started to annoy me. I'm glad that someone smart finally put a direct counter ad up to the anti-Indian gaming ads that were being paid for by ... non-Indian gaming casinos and racetrack betting businesses. Gee, only those who will be directly and negatively affected by the Indians increasing their gaming business. I'm shocked!
Super Tuesday is coming up shortly (Feb 5). I'm really not looking forward to the political ads that will start steamrolling once that is over and the main candidates are chosen for the next Presidential race. After this, I expect to really start getting annoyed.
*sigh
The watchword used to be "truth in advertising," but that's gone the way of $2 a gallon gas. Today, politicians make up whatever lie gets the end result desired!
ReplyDeleteJust as gas has come down to about $2.90 a gallon out here comes the news that there is suddenly a "shortage" of a required additive--and prices will soar in the next couple of weeks--just in time for Spring Break!
There's a feeling that no one can be believed and that "good intentions" remove the damage caused by the lack of ethics and the egregious lies that pander as truth.
Remember "I did not have sex with that woman"?
My ballot arrived and I literally could not force myself to vote for any candidate for president: I do not believe that there are any candidates who represent my political reality!
I did, however, vote against the Indian gaming revenue stream as I think it is sophomoric to believe that any state should be fiscally obligated to gambling as revenue. In times of recession, do people still gamble? Well, the state of Cally-fone-ya does ...
Raise the sales tax a penny across the board at the same time as Indian gambling revenue is added to the fiscal pot and I'll vote for it. Put funding the state on the back of gambling, and it won't get my approval.
Last time around, the voters bought into funding public ed with lottery funds, one of the biggest lies perpetrated on the state! If we don't learn from our mistakes, we'll simply continue to repeat them and sell them as truth "this time" to the people.
Commericials are a huge part of why I do not have cable. I loathe advertising. I'd much rather look up information online regarding products I'm interested in and spec them out myself to determine which is the better by.
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