Misleading Advertising
Marketing as a profession carries a bad reputation. People hear the word “marketer” and immediately associate words like “liar,” “deceitful,” and “misleading” with the term. This set of mental associations frustrates me, but I can’t say it’s entirely inaccurate. Particularly with the kinds of television advertisements we see in the world today.
No, I’m not talking about political campaign ads. That’s a different story altogether. I’m talking about television advertisements for popular products. When diet pills and workout machines claim massive weight loss in a few days, you almost always see the tiny “results not typical” disclaimer on the bottom. One ab machine I saw advertised the other day bragged about how one woman lost 20 lbs and got a flat stomach in … less than a month! Then I noticed the brief flash of the disclaimer. Thank you DVR for letting me rewind and pause.
Results not typical. Individual results will vary. This participant paired the ***** ab workout with a healthy diet and daily cardiovascular workout.
So the standalone solution can’t really stand on it’s own, can it? But we all know to be wary about these particular commercials. So I’ll move on … to movie trailers.
I like action films. I also like supernatural thrillers. So when film makers marry the two concepts into one film, I can almost guarantee I’ll be at one of the many daily showings. This past week, I decided to go see Max Payne. I realize it’s a movie based on a video game, but that’s OK with me. The trailer was compelling enough:
WARNING!!!The next section of this post contains spoilers for the movie. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know the ending.
This was a fantastic cop thriller and action movie. But there weren’t any valkyries or demons or angels or God or the devil “building his army” in the movie at all! Every scene with valkyries flying overhead is the result of some drug-induced hallucination on the part of the movie’s characters!
I went to the movie expecting a great pairing of action and supernatural suspense … Once they revealed that all of the shadows and creepy winged creatures were hallucinations, though, I realized I wasn’t getting my supernatural fix for the day. Getting past that expectation was difficult, but possible.
I’d still give the film a 7.7/10 for action. I’d give the marketers who designed the ad campaign a 0/10, though. They hooked me on a particular concept and got me to shell out $8 for a movie ticket … only to discover the concept they were selling didn’t even exist. This kind of bait and switch gives the rest of us a bad name.
I can’t deny that some marketers in the world try to trick people on purpose. I have to admit that I fell for a clever marketing ploy myself, so as much as I’m frustrated by it … it’s real. Some marketers really are deceitful, and misleading advertising like the Max Payne trailer above proves it.
“Weasel”-like Advertising…
With all of the misleading political ads running, it’s easy to see that advertising is a tricky game to play. Although politicians don’t have to tell the truth in their ads due to the ads being covered under “political speech”……
I feel your pain! I hate it when I see movie trailers that show all these great scenes that aren’t even in the movie. I realize they make those trailers early, but if it’s good enough to get in the trailer, why not keep it in the movie! I definitely feel jipped and lied to when that happens. And all the diet stuff – don’t get me started!