Consumer Safety & Awareness Part 29

Advertising Scams
(Part 3 – Deception Through Exaggeration)


Before you read this Blog, take a look at Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality, which shows pictures of fast food items as they were advertised along side of actual photographs. McDonald's Sausage McMuffin ad photo looks like it was before it was cooked (the English muffin is not toasted). The KFC Famous Bowl “actual” shot makes it look like something I would not feed my pets.

Before you purchase a product for the first time, any product, research reviews of it on the Internet. While it’s true that disgrumpled consumers write many reviews, and as many are actually written by the company that made the product, by reading between the lines you can get a feel for the quality, the reliability, and the cost-worthiness of the item.

Computer games are a good example. The advertising hype for the item may begin two to three years before the game is available. The reviewers are showing best-case possibilities. They are informed of what the finished product will be like. It is doubtful if the programmers are going to say that it’s a dud – they have invested millions of dollars into production. Always wait a few months before buying the game. You may land up getting version 2.5 with many of the bugs worked out. If the price falls from $49.95 to $19.95 in ten weeks, you know it’s a disaster.

Along the same lines, movie and television shows are hyped with grandiose terms: the show of the season, the best police drama on television, and this year’s huge hit. Quite a few of these absolutely perfect entertainment showpieces are off the air within four or six episodes. Sixteen million people may have tuned into the pilot show, 12 million the second week, 3 million remained around by the sixth week, and even the sponsors stopped watching soon after,

Who writes the reviews shown in the advertisements? Quite frequently it is truly the words of the reviewers. Yet there are three things you must consider:

1. Not all reviewers are sane. Quite a few liked “My Mother the Car.”

2. Some reviewers work for the television station. Do you think a reporter working for CBS is going to say a new CBS show stinks?

3. Advertisements are permitted to paraphrase or truncate a review. Consider: “This is the worst television show to come along in 20 years.” This may appear in the ad as, “The reviewer has not seen a show of this quality in 20 years.

Advertisers love superlatives: Best!!! Greatest. Sure to win awards (as the bomb of the year?). The best cereal for your heart, the best and fastest Internet connection, the best service. How about some honesty: “The biggest and most blatant exaggeration in advertising.