Advertising Lie

The “Just do it” (don’t procrastinate) phrase that Nike use is a very good ethic indeed for life (indeed vital), but yet again, sadly, it has nothing at all to do with the actual products being advertised. It’s just picked up and arbitrarily linked to the brand, so I’m going to put it down as a lie inasmuch as it says nothing unique about it.

I am the owner of some very expensive Nike products, but I have to say the quality is really only average, and they were probably made at very low cost in China with the savings being spent on the advertising, which seems almost cannibalistic. Advertising and quality of merchandise usually have very little relation to each other.

Advertising Lie

“England goes smoke-free on July 1st.”

-NHS

England does not go smoke-free on July 1st, it just becomes illegal to smoke inside public buildings and vehicles - and about time too. In fact the NHS encourages people to go outside to smoke instead. But people smoking outside are the biggest problem. It’s hard to avoid their second-hand smoke when simply walking down the pavement, and from July there will be more of them than ever.

There is a simple rule which should be enforced regarding smoking. It goes as follows:

“It is illegal to smoke in any location where there might be people who have not explicitly consented to breathe your smoke. This includes the private home.”

Advertising Lie

I haven’t reported an advertising lie for some time - perhaps because I’ve been in Tokyo, where there are fewer to see (certainly fewer to understand!), but I spotted a good one yesterday in Chelsea. It’s an estate agent (again!). You’d think they have a bad enough reputation already, but I like this one in a way because it is just a blatant untruth, with no attempt to disguise it:

“Selling houses is an art form.”

Douglas & Gordon

Talk about delusions of grandeur… everybody knows selling houses is not an art form!

Apple Genius Bar

I have discovered that the “Genius Bar” in the Regent Street Apple Store is not, in fact, populated by geniuses.

Advertising biases news

Some people are so greedy for wealth and power, it’s very sad. I have no interest at all in having power over other people, I don’t care about my title or car, and I am not very motivated by money either (because I know it does not buy happiness) - I just want to do creative work and be paid fairly for what I do.

Regarding power, specifically, take a look at this quotation from my favourite philosopher, Bertrand Russell:

Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure … It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive.

Bertrand Russell, Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1950

But, back to love of money, today I received a reminder of how much it influences, for example, news reporting, which should always be as impartial as possible.

An insider at News International explained to me how much The Times depends on the income of The Sun, and how much The Sun’s income depends on it running selected and censored news stories which will not upset its advertisers. Sometimes utlitilitarian measures have to be taken, granted, but in the case of The Sun there is no greater good to consider (unless it’s The Times), so this ends up as just pure corruption.

About those adverts, by the way - I can’t think of a single occasion when I have seen one and thought “I must go and get that product”! They either have a distinctly negative effect or are just mildly annoying and totally ignored (because I know they’re obviously biased). I prefer a ‘pull’ approach to marketing, not a ‘push’ one. I know what I want, go and research the area independently and get it.

I would prefer subscription-based news, with assured integrity, not at all supported by advertising or any other vested interests. For this reason I value the BBC above other sources (though it is certainly not perfect and often seems to have its own left-wing and politically correct agenda). In the private sector, Lonely Planet have achieved this with their guidebooks on a small scale. Why could it not be done on a wider scale?

Advertising Lie

Halifax are doing a poster currently with some boring financial news on it which is probably much the same as what the other building societies offer. Anyway, I was looking at it (because I couldn’t help it, as usual - it was 12 feet wide and opposite me) and considered the way that their particular strategy is to show lots of people and pretend that they are their staff from across the nation. The only trouble is that unless there has been a major trend towards models wanting to work in banking, these are not all Halifax staff. I can’t say for sure (they’d probably never tell) but I’ll bet there are a lot of “extras” here. That’s lie number 1, but there is another in that if you examine the poster you notice that these are not all different people, but just a smaller group of people who have been tiled (repeated) to create the impression of more. Perhaps the modelling agency budget only extended to this many? It’s hardly on the scale of Enron, I grant you, but whichever way you cut it, it’s deceit of the general public and another advertising lie…

Advertising Lie

A lot of advertising lies are so obviously lies it makes you wonder why they bother at all, and this one kind of falls into that category. That’s right, it’s product endorsement. I have just seen one where a woman (presumably famous) called Ashlee Simpson is endorsing Skechers shoes. I saw another which said something like “Omega - the choice of 007 Pierce Brosnan”.

Without wishing to state the obvious (which seems to have passed the advertisers by), let’s just say it how it is: these people are paid to endorse these products. It says nothing about the products except they have paid enough money for the people to pose for a short time wearing them. Most of these models would probably never wear the brands they endorse (especially since they endorse them). As it happens I quite like Skechers shoes, but we can all make up our own minds without hollow endorsements such as these!

Advertising Lie

This is not so much an advertising lie as just a sad thing. On my way into work at Covent Garden today I noticed Gap are advertising “boy fit trousers” for women. Without any shame - seriously. I know men have achieved a lot, but there is really no reason for women to be so determined to look and act like them. Women are great too, and there’s nothing wrong with being feminine.

For example, Audrey Hepburn is - even now - frequently voted the most beautiful woman of all time. Why do you think that is? Was it because she dressed like a man, smoked like a man, drank like a man, swore like a man, was arrogant and overweight? (These are characteristics which seem to almost define British women now, and I lay the blame largely at the door of feminism.) No, it’s because she was elegant, feminine, graceful, refined and considerate of others. And she was all the more powerful for it.

The sexes are equal but different, and I think we should celebrate that difference, not try to eliminate it. One of these days I will blog that I’ve spotted an English woman in a skirt, then we really will all be surprised (and refreshed!).

Advertising Lie

A car company here is currently advertising their vehicle implying that if you have one you will be exactly like the James Bond-esque character who features in the ad. You will have your fortune read in Shanghai then meet the car by chance and drive it through the Amazon jungle and up onto ski slopes.

What kind of men are immature enough to be influenced by this kind of advertising I’m not sure, but a certain breed of highly impressionable and gullible ones evidently are, or the likes this car company (whose name I didn’t even notice) and Gillette razors, whose users all seem to be fighter pilots, would be out of business by now. The reality is that the car is more then likely going to be used as a “Chelsea tractor” and that’s all! It should be advertised as such - or even better as a farm vehicle, which is a use it actually suits.

Advertising Lie

“I could tell she was the one from the glint in her glasses.”
- Some contact lens firm

It takes a moment to realise what this advert is trying to say, but its principal (wrong) claim seems to be that the wearing of glasses prevents eye to eye contact and that the unfortunate female wearer is therefore destined to be sad, lonely and neglected in terms of romance.

We will have to come up with a name for this cynical and often-seen mode of attack by advertisers, if there isn’t one already. ‘Emotional blackmail’ would be fine (’buy our product or you will be sad and lonely’), but I think we can go stronger than that and call it ‘emotional bullying’. Incidentally, the claim here is not only false, but as far as I’m concerned it is contrary to the truth - I find women in glasses particularly attractive and always have done!

If I could even remember the company’s name I’d urge you to boycott them.

Advertising Lie

Here’s a great one:

“You’ve got a friend” - AA

Um.. let’s be clear. The AA are not your friend. Friends don’t charge you money for their help!

This is an example of one of those adverts (there are many) which just shows how people will continue to use a service despite its brainless advertising, through either not thinking or because there is insufficient competition in the marketplace.