| 1 | %% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1481374709096376800 |
| 2 | %% Please do not add an image without starting a new thread. |
| 3 | %% |
| 4 | |
| 5 | ->'''Creator/JerryLewis:''' You cannot polish a turd.\ |
| 6 | '''Creator/StanleyKubrick:''' You can if you freeze it. |
| 7 | -->-- Related by Lewis in the NY Times article "What They Say About Stanley Kubrick" (1999) |
| 8 | |
| 9 | So you've got the job of producing, managing, or marketing something. It could be a consumer product, an album, a film, anything but whatever it is, it's bad, or at least mediocre. The concept is so [[AudienceAlienatingPremise fundamentally flawed]], or the execution so rushed and so badly thought out, that no one in their right mind would buy it or watch it or read it or listen to it or enjoy it on its own merits. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | Fixing it would require a total overhaul, which you don't have the time or money for, and the higher-ups don't care how terrible it may be, [[MoneyDearBoy as long as they get their money out of it]]. You can't just abandon it — [[SunkCostFallacy too many resources have been sunk into it]], or your marketing agency has been hired to manage promotion, and as lame as that product is, it's your ''job'' to make it look good. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | So what do you do? You try your best to [[DarthWiki/WorseThanItSounds make it look better than it is]] and hope that it's effective enough to sell a few million copies. Maybe you'll try presenting NegativesAsAPositive, as in NeverNeedsSharpening or AsbestosFreeCereal. You can use ExactWords to give some FalseReassurance. If you're really good, you can manage to avoid making it sound like it's DamnedByFaintPraise. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | Incidentally, the Series/MythBusters have proven that you can indeed polish a literal turd to a high shine without resorting to additional coatings if you dry it, pulverize it, reconstitute it and pat it until very smooth. Bless those boys. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | We might need to change the expression to "You can polish a turd, but it's still a turd." |
| 18 | |
| 19 | There are numerous ways of doing this, many of which are Tropes on their own, and yes, all examples are TruthInTelevision. %% In a CrapsaccharineWorld, the result of an apparently clean and peaceful place where to live may be obtained with a PotemkinVillage: an apparently functional and inhabited place that turns out to be fake and uninhabited. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | Note that the special effects industry uses a similar term, "turd polishing", in reference to [[StylisticSuck ensuring the high-quality appearance of something that is]] ''[[StylisticSuck intended]]'' [[StylisticSuck to look ugly.]] Therefore, that is not this trope. Do not confuse either with [[{{Pun}} turds from Poland.]] Also has nothing ''inherently'' to do with SolidGoldPoop, although it may be subjected to this treatment. |
| 22 | ---- |
| 23 | !!Examples |
| 24 | |
| 25 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 26 | |
| 27 | [[folder:Tropes used to polish turds:]] |
| 28 | * AdjacentToThisCompleteBreakfast: Do you want to make your ChocolateFrostedSugarBombs look healthy? Place them alongside toast, bacon, eggs, cheese, pancakes, fruit, vegetables, orange juice, milk, etc., and say that they're an essential part of the complete breakfast. |
| 29 | * AdvertisingByAssociation: Find anyone associated with the production who was involved in something people liked, and slap the name of that thing all over your advertising. This works particularly well, because it leaves ambiguity for ''how'' involved they were. "From the Writer that Brought You" doesn't tell you how many times the initially decent script got rewritten into unrecognizability, "From the Producer that Brought You" can mean that they simply sent in a check and didn't show up to the studio afterward, and "From the Studio that Brought You" can mean sharing anything from half the production staff to some members of the camera crew and marketing department. |
| 30 | * AppealToAuthority (with bonus points if it's an appeal to irrelevant authority): Have a celebrity who has no real substantive background on the issue support your product or position. Say Dr. So-and-so supports you without revealing he's NotThatKindOfDoctor...or that he ''was'', but he lost his medical license ''years'' ago for whatever reason(s). Find the crank in a field when the consensus is overwhelmingly against you or, if you can't even find one of those, just hire an actor and dress them up in a labcoat and stethoscope. |
| 31 | * ArtisticLicense: When you don't have to obey the laws of science or can ignore historical fact or can make it unrealistic in another way, you can make it much more interesting. |
| 32 | * AsbestosFreeCereal: Treat some inconsequential trait about the product as something cool or unique. |
| 33 | * AsTheGoodBookSays: Appeal to religion. Make up interpretations or embrace an obscure fringe group if you have to. |
| 34 | * AstroTurf: Hire a bunch of puppets to pretend to be ordinary consumers while singing your product's praises in public. |
| 35 | * BlatantLies: If all else fails, outright lie about the product. |
| 36 | * ConsumerConspiracy: Tell people it's a big secret (when it's not), or that whatever industry "doesn't want you to know about it." |
| 37 | * CoversAlwaysLie: Slap a flashy cover on it (relevance to the actual product is optional), and reveal as little as possible about the actual plot. |
| 38 | * {{Crunchtastic}}: Make up a positive-sounding but basically meaningless adjective to describe your product. Nobody can accuse you of false advertising when you use words you coined yourself. |
| 39 | * DamnedByFaintPraise: For example, "good neighborhood" is real estate jargon for "this house sucks, but it's adjacent to good ones." |
| 40 | * ExactWords: Euphemize, euphemize, euphemize! It's not calorie-laden, it's "a great source of energy!" or use phrases like "up to" and "starting at". These are mathematically correct. |
| 41 | * FanService: Put a hot girl or a hot guy in front of a product and you've got a winner; for both sexes. |
| 42 | -->'''Male:''' "Hey, if I buy that body spray, random women will want to have sex with me!" |
| 43 | -->'''Female:''' "Hey, if I buy that shampoo, I'll have a great body like hers!" |
| 44 | * FauxlosophicNarration: Throw in some pseudo-philosophy. |
| 45 | * GetTheSensation: Use ridiculous metaphors to show what using the product feels like. Don't say what it actually ''does''. |
| 46 | * HeAlsoDid: "From the creators of" or "from the people who brought you" and name a popular and successful title that has creators in common, even if these creators didn't do much more than greenlight the project or write a check for the turd being polished. If truly desperate, try "from the studio that brought you..." If you're willing to, write "Has been watched by the producers of..." (Yes. That really happened.) |
| 47 | * HereComesTheScience: Baffle them with science...or at least something that ''sounds'' like science. |
| 48 | * LaughTrack: Use canned laughter after every "joke" in your "comedy". If the fake audience is laughing, it must be hilarious, right? |
| 49 | * LiesDamnedLiesAndStatistics: Manipulate statistical data, or use outdated or inaccurate data to promote your idea. |
| 50 | * LiteCreme: Just slap some WeaselWords on your product to make it seem healthier or more natural than it really is. |
| 51 | * LowestCommonDenominator: Appeal to it. You’d be surprised what you can get away with when you account for the uneducated/stupid/lazy portion of the population. |
| 52 | * MadeInCountryX: Remind customers of the importance of supporting local businesses to win over patriotic individuals. If the product is made in an "undesirable" country, downplay it by emphasizing that the product was ''designed'' in a "good" country, or that a small part of the manufacturing process is made locally [-(after the remaining 99% of the work is done in a third-world sweatshop)-]. |
| 53 | * NeverMyFault: For works of fiction, blame the audience! It's not a bad work and it's not bad that key elements were changed or a fan-favorite was KilledOffForReal; fans are just entitled [[{{Manchild}} manchildren]] who don't like it because things were changed, are selfish elitists who are mad it didn't give them exactly what they wanted, or are "ists" because they didn't like certain casting choices. Depict low audience scores as some sort of calculated {{Troll}}ing campaign or "review-bombing" to try and act like [[NoTrueScotsman only "toxic" fans didn't like it]], thus implying "everyone else did." Cap it off with a DearNegativeReader or two and a few clickbait articles cherry-picking reasons why anyone who didn't like it is wrong. Do everything and anything to blame anyone else, in order to cover up and downplay the flaws of the work. |
| 54 | * NeverNeedsSharpening: Does your product have a serious flaw? Spin it to appear positive! For instance, after the Internet and news media exploded over a serious factual error on FOX's quiz show ''Million Dollar Money Drop'', FOX promoted the show saying "the airwaves and Internet were on fire" and that it was "the most talked-about show of the season." |
| 55 | * {{Non Indicative Name}}s. |
| 56 | * NostalgiaFilter: Pander to those longing for the "good old days." |
| 57 | * NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: Embrace controversy! If your work is an offensive turd, make sure to get the MoralGuardians in an uproar, and play up the offense at the self-righteous to lock in a certain demographic rather than play up the artistic merit of the work. Sexist? Portray your critic as a StrawFeminist ruining the fun for the boys. Racist? Pretend that the talk is only coming from MalcolmXerox wannabes. Anti-religious? Play your critics as hatchet-faced fundamentalists. Homophobic or Transphobic? Your critics must be sex-fiend perverts. A lazy rehash of a franchise you squeezed the life out of 20 years ago? Add a RaceLift, CastFullOfGay, or all-female cast and portray any critics as right-wing bigots. Even if any or all the above "critics" are {{Astroturfing}} bot accounts controlled by your studio, the [[AbominationAccusationAttack accusations will still make anyone reluctant to call your turkey anything but a masterpiece]]. |
| 58 | * NotScreenedForCritics: Don't let critics get hold of it. Alternatively, pay them to not review it, pay them to retract negative reviews, or just bribe them to write glowing reviews. |
| 59 | * PoesLaw: Say something ''so'' outrageous that people will feel compelled to see if it's for real. |
| 60 | * The PropagandaMachine. |
| 61 | * QuoteMine: "Creatively rearrange" negative reviews. Mixed reviews work best for this. Keep the positive bits, and edit out the negative comments. |
| 62 | * ReadTheFinePrint: Put all those unpleasant "terms and conditions" and legal mumbo-jumbo that might make people think twice about your product or service in ''extremely tiny'' writing that most people aren't going to notice, let alone read and understand, before signing on. |
| 63 | * {{Sock Puppet}}s: Create fake accounts that support whatever you write on your blog or website. |
| 64 | * StylisticSuck: Say it's intended to be that way. |
| 65 | * TakeThatCritics: Turn on the critics who panned your show. This almost never succeeds at making the show CriticProof, but the temptation to try it is often irresistible. |
| 66 | * TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket: Show how hard it is to do something the normal way, then show how your product makes it ''super easy'' to do. Even if that thing is something no reasonably capable person would ever have trouble with. |
| 67 | * TotallyRadical: Get the 18-35 demographic by tapping into the latest fads and topics. [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece Who cares if the show looks dated]], you can always update it! |
| 68 | * WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: Claim it's for kids. This is especially useful for genre novels. |
| 69 | [[/folder]] |
| 70 | |
| 71 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 72 | * Commercials for shoddy children's toys will play up the fact that it's made of a "Space Age polymer". The Space Age, for those who forgot, started in the 60s. They're talking about ''plastic''. |
| 73 | * Point out that the product is "patented" in an attempt to make it sound like the product in question is a novel invention that has been vetted by the patent examiner. In reality, being granted a patent does not require you to prove your invention works ''better'' than previously known ones, just that it's ''different'' and that it works ''at all''. And in practice, people have managed to acquire patents for "inventions" which are obviously not the least bit novel and/or have absolutely no chance of working but flew under the patent examiner's radar by using a ChewbaccaDefense on the application; more than one PerpetualMotionMachine has gotten a patent, to name but one type of example. This is also how patent trolls came to be, as well as some of the more outrageous examples of DisneyOwnsThisTrope. |
| 74 | ** Even worse, the brag of "patent pending," meaning the meaningless process isn't even ''completed'' yet. |
| 75 | * If nobody in their right mind would buy your product for themselves, say it's "the perfect gift for anyone". Particularly common for household "inventions" aimed at people TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket. |
| 76 | * Tell people it NeverNeedsSharpening. |
| 77 | * If it's a medication or [[SpiceRackPanacea herbal supplement]], show a happy couple on the beach, a mother playing with her children, or something like that, and focus on ''that'' [[SideEffectsInclude instead of any unpleasant side effects... or even what the drug supposedly does]]. |
| 78 | ** In the United States at least, this is half-right at best. Medication ''must'' by law disclose adverse effects and what it's for. As long as you don't claim to treat a specific disease, you dodge this regulation and can make utterly spurious and unprovable claims while claiming no adverse effects. The FDA does not review these claims. Manufacturers are not responsible for proving anything for an herbal supplement before putting it on the package as long as they don't claim to treat a specific disease. For example: |
| 79 | *** Use meaningless claims like "Boosts immunity." This phrase is utterly context-free and meaningless. No real medication uses it. An actual drug like filgrastim that supports the immune system tells you exactly what they are (granulocyte colony stimulating factor) and come with their adverse effects listed. "Boosts immunity" is a meaningless term that could in some way be said of a tall glass of water. |
| 80 | *** Similarly: "It's good for the heart." This claim is vague enough to be true of a glass of water. An actual drug like metoprolol makes a specific claim, like "is a selective beta-blocker with a negative inotropic effect." Naturally, this confuses a consumer, because a doctor or mid-level practitioner does not have the time to explain what the heck that means before the patients in the waiting room are backed up. |
| 81 | *** Herbal products which make health claims are regulated as foods, not as drugs. Just like a cheeseburger has to tell you what's in it, but not that it's going to raise your cholesterol, herbal products disclose ingredients but don't disclose adverse effects and can make vague, "truthy" claims. For example, statins are anti-cholesterol life-savers derived from a compound found in red yeast rice, with similar pharmacological properties and adverse effects. There is some evidence red yeast rice with the right compounds is basically a weak statin. Some patients may prefer an herbal to a man-made medication. Don't expect the red yeast rice supplement (in the US) to disclose that it has same adverse effects as statins, or if it even still has the pharmacologically active ingredient. The law as of 2021 does not require them to. So even though some red yeast rice may actually lower your cholesterol, you can't be sure (in the US) of what you're getting. |
| 82 | *** None of this replaces actually talking to a health care professional, of course. Don't get your medical advice from TV Tropes [[note]]Even when the troper writing this is an [[EagleLandOsmosis American]] [[AppealToAuthority medical doctor]] providing some helpful links about [[https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/supplement/red-yeast-rice#:~:text=Red%20yeast%20rice%2C%20also%20called,blood%20circulation%2C%20and%20improve%20digestion red yeast rice]], [[https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-red-yeast-rice/art-20363074 2nd patient info source]], and [[https://www.chpa.org/about-consumer-healthcare/faqs/faqs-about-dietary-supplements-regulations?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid-search&utm_campaign=dietsupplments-2021 the law]]. [[/note]] |
| 83 | * Point out that [[AsbestosFreeCereal it's free of asbestos, gluten, calories, or whatever other buzzword]]. |
| 84 | * [[SexForProduct Say it will get you laid.]] |
| 85 | * Tell people they can have it for [[PaymentPlanPitch just pennies a day]], or literally chop up the payment process into several arbitrary chunks of smaller "easy payments." |
| 86 | * Tell people [[AllegedlyFreeGame they can play for free]]... but not [[{{Freemium}} the version]] they'd really want to play. |
| 87 | * Give away a free gift that they can keep, even if they return the product during a ThirtyDayFreeTrial (which you're banking they won't). |
| 88 | * [[CableSatelliteMudslinging Try to discredit your competitors.]] |
| 89 | * Tell people that [[Literature/TheEmperorsNewClothes only a fool wouldn't recognize how awesome it is]]. |
| 90 | * [[DadaAd If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em!]] |
| 91 | * Call yourselves the "fastest-growing" in your field. If you went from 1 customer to 3, that's a 200% increase! |
| 92 | * English seaside resort Skegness had a famous advertising slogan: "Skegness is ''so'' bracing!". "Bracing" being a euphemism for "cold". |
| 93 | * Website/AdTurds has a whole archive full of imperfectly polished turds in advertising. |
| 94 | * Compare it to something that ''not a lot of your potential customers would be using, anyway'', and hope they don't know the difference. For example, when cable or satellite companies compare their Internet speeds to ADSL. They're right in that ADSL is ''much'' slower than what they're most likely offering. But what they don't tell you is, ''most residential homes aren't going to be using ADSL'' anyway. The only people who ''might'' be using ADSL are people in remote areas that can't get cable or fiber Internet (or else they would), low-income households that can't afford to get anything faster (or else they would), or people that use the Internet sparingly and thus don't really ''need'' (or even ''want'') high-speed Internet. So when a broadband provider compares its speeds against ADSL, they're really comparing apples and oranges. |
| 95 | * Appeal to people's insecurities and fears. Bonus points if you can make them feel insecure or worried about something that perhaps they didn't before. |
| 96 | * Tell people it will make them more popular. |
| 97 | * Tell people it will make them rich. |
| 98 | * Tell people it will make them live longer. |
| 99 | * Imply that people who ''don't'' use your product are [[TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket incompetent]], [[BeautyEqualsGoodness unattractive]], stupid, etc. |
| 100 | * Tell your prospective customers [[WeCare what a caring and socially-responsible company you are]], even if you are neither one of those things. |
| 101 | * Tell people it's NewAndImproved. |
| 102 | * Tell people that they'll be doing some good by buying your product. For example, a shoe company might say they'll donate a pair of shoes to a child in DarkestAfrica for every pair they sell. Or a pet food company might say they'll donate 10 meals to a number of animal shelters or rescue organizations for every bag of dog/cat food they sell. |
| 103 | * Tell people your product or service starts at X amount (but they'll have to pay more for the version they ''really'' want), they can have it for [[PaymentPlanPitch just pennies a day]], or that the payment can be split up into X "easy payments." |
| 104 | * If your product is going to have its basic design shared with others, but is the first one to have that design, you can say that it is "unique" and a "clean sheet design" before the others arrive. |
| 105 | * Tell people your product (or an offer associated with it) is NotAvailableInStores. |
| 106 | * Say that the product has been "scientifically tested." This is advertising lingo for "none of our claims have been demonstrated in any tests our product has been given." |
| 107 | [[/folder]] |
| 108 | |
| 109 | [[folder:Art]] |
| 110 | * Give your painting an obscure, Latin-sounding title or just title it in a [[EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench different language]]. |
| 111 | * Make it [[BiggerIsBetter bigger]]. |
| 112 | * Intentionally naming something "(untitled)" can give a piece an air of mystery as if it were some forgotten, recently-discovered cryptic relic. |
| 113 | * Put an unaffordably high price tag on your piece. If no one can afford it, they might be deluded into thinking it has value. |
| 114 | * Place a curator's statement next to your painting: bonus points if you describe how the painting fits into the canon of art history. |
| 115 | * '''[[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible Interpretation.]]''' Describe it as post-modern. |
| 116 | * All else fails, [[DeadArtistsAreBetter death gets you a good rap]] if you have enough reliability to disappear without ''actually'' dying. Even better if you announce you were working on a new project before it happened. |
| 117 | * Everything's better with lens flares. Photography, digital art, you name it. |
| 118 | [[/folder]] |
| 119 | |
| 120 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 121 | * [[WolverinePublicity Have a popular superhero make a random appearance]], and put him on the cover. |
| 122 | * [[CoversAlwaysLie Slap on a great-looking cover that has nothing to do with what actually takes place in the book]]. |
| 123 | * [[{{Superdickery}} Wild exaggeration.]] Does Wolverine get in a shouting match with Cyclops? Well, then, that deserves nothing less than a claws-bared, optic blasts-firing, knock-down-drag-out fight on the cover, maybe with a nice phrase like "To the breaking point!" or "It's finally come to this!" scrawled across it. |
| 124 | [[/folder]] |
| 125 | |
| 126 | [[folder:Film]] |
| 127 | * [[NeverTrustATrailer Patch together a trailer that makes the film look much more interesting than it actually is.]] Toss in what few interesting moments the film actually has, some explosions, a gunfight or two, and plenty of [[{{Fanservice}} eye candy]]. For padding, [[MissingTrailerScene add some scenes that didn't actually make it into the film]]. Once again, make sure never to reveal anything about the plot. |
| 128 | ** For a "comedy", put the film's only three funny lines/jokes/quips into the trailer, which ''will'' fall afoul of TrailerJokeDecay. |
| 129 | ** For a generic RomCom, make the trailer a short montage of the film's young, [[GenericCuteness generically-cute]] protagonists exchanging [[WittyBanter semi-witty lines]] over a candlelit dinner, passionately embracing each other, and gazing dreamily at [[BigApplesauce the Manhattan skyline]]. |
| 130 | ** Present it as an entirely different genre in the trailer. |
| 131 | * Make the CGI at least halfway decent, then hope nobody notices the [[DullSurprise awful acting]] and/or glaring {{Plot Hole}}s. |
| 132 | ** Make it a 3DMovie. Your audience will be so busy marveling at how they're in the film that they won't care. |
| 133 | * [[CompletelyDifferentTitle Retitle it]] when it goes to DVD to sidestep terrible reviews. |
| 134 | * Retitle it to [[DolledUpInstallment make it the sequel to an unrelated film you own the rights to]]. |
| 135 | * Retitle it to [[TheMockbuster suggest a connection to a famous film you don't own the rights to]] (for example, ''Snakes on a Train''). |
| 136 | * Claim that it was "Too [positive adjective here] to show in theaters!" when it goes DirectToVideo because no studio is willing to expend the resources to dignify it with a theatrical release. |
| 137 | * Pay Jeff Craig from Sixty Second Preview to say something nice about it... although note that it's [[spoiler:a marketing company, not a review publication]]. |
| 138 | ** Sony went the extra mile by creating a ''fake'' critic, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Manning_(fictitious_writer) "David Manning"]], to attribute marketing-developed quotes to, and eventually agreed to refund customers' tickets for polishing ''Film/HollowMan'', ''Film/TheAnimal'', ''Film/ThePatriot2000'', ''Film/AKnightsTale'', and ''Film/VerticalLimit''. |
| 139 | * Print "The best film of [the current year]!" on the cover. Don't attribute it. Hope no one notices it isn't actually in quotation marks. |
| 140 | ** Bonus points if you do this one in January. |
| 141 | ** Print a non-attributed blurb in quotation marks anyway. Hope nobody notices that you're just quoting yourself. |
| 142 | * Mention vaguely that it won (or was at least ''nominated'' for) an "Academy Award." Do not specifically note that it was for Best Supporting Sound Splicer. |
| 143 | * Do ''not'' [[NotScreenedForCritics let the critics get their hands on it]]. |
| 144 | ** When they eventually do, QuoteMine the hell out of them. [[Film/EdWood "The costumes are very realistic?" "Victor Crowling himself praised its realism!"]] |
| 145 | * Hire a [[OneSceneWonder big-name actor to appear in one short scene]]. Make sure his contract allows you to [[BillingDisplacement give him top billing]]. |
| 146 | * An old technique was to shoot TV commercials that featured audience members who had just seen it raving about it. |
| 147 | ** ''Film/HotShots'' parodied this with an ad that admitted that its makers were paying off audience members in exchange for raves, which foreshadowed the death of the practice when — as part of the David Manning scandal — it was revealed that Sony had hired actors to play audience members in an ad for ''Film/ThePatriot2000''. |
| 148 | ** Parodied in a 1980s fake commercial from ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', in which every person who attended a stage hypnotist's Broadway show droned "I loved it. It was much better than ''Theatre/{{Cats}}''. I'm going to see it again and again" with identical blank stares. |
| 149 | ** Parodied to a lesser extent in ''Film/HotFuzz'', after Nicholas and Danny suffer through a dreadful production of ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', a journalist asks for Nicholas' opinion, to which he replies in the most emotionless and unenthusiastic voice ever "...highly enjoyable." |
| 150 | ** This is making a reappearance in Australia and the UK. |
| 151 | ** Also parodied in ''Website/CollegeHumor''[='=]s "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO2aCVlnLow Ice Age in 4D]]", in which the reactions of each audience changes as the Platform/ThreeDMovie moves up a dimension. Notably, the first guy consistently talks about the movie, while the other people become increasingly irrelevant. |
| 152 | * The 'raving audience' tactic is now repeated with Twitter and Facebook reactions to the film which were positive, sadly allowing @bomlovr1987 to have an undeserved minute of fame for their rave review of what everyone else thinks of as terrible. |
| 153 | * If an actor in your film has been caught up in a scandal, ends up in rehab, or does anything else to screw the pooch in terms of their reputation or the attention they bring to the film, show them in the trailer as little as possible and cut them out of any promotional work. |
| 154 | * Celebrity appearance! [[{{Fanservice}} Bonus points if she's naked.]] |
| 155 | * Schedule its release for the DumpMonths, and hope that it gets overshadowed by your studio's OscarBait and SummerBlockbuster movies. |
| 156 | * Market it for its "camp" value, even if it was made seriously. |
| 157 | ** When Paramount was losing money on ''Film/MommieDearest'' (1981), the studio found out that some viewers were watching it for its unintentional humor value, so it came out with an ad with a coat hanger on it and the tagline "Meet the biggest MOTHER of them all!" |
| 158 | ** A weird variant (if not subversion...) happened with ''Film/TheLonelyLady''. A disastrous test screening and the studio wondered what to fix. The publicist responsible was John Wilson, founder of the UsefulNotes/{{Golden Raspberry Award}}s, who knew it was both an unsalvageable disaster (in his book, Wilson said that trying to cut out [[{{Narm}} the laughs]] led to about 17 minutes of film) and a forerunning favorite to his "awards". He persuaded the studio to re-instate the rough cut with only a couple of minor alterations, knowing full well that the film would gain far more of a cult reputation if it were SoBadItsGood instead of just mediocre and forgettable, as the studio's re-edit would have been. Wilson even convinced them to retain [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXyYnzdd-po one of the most ridiculous scenes]], which the studio wanted to excise, and later justified when questioned by another person by saying "if they cut it out, they'd be ruining a perfectly ''awful'' movie!" |
| 159 | * When the movie gets released and starts bombing, find whatever OverlyNarrowSuperlative you can to justify it being #1 at something. Opens in 7th place but it's the only film in its genre to be released that week? "#1 horror movie in America!" [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Bombs in its home country but does okay in territories where nobody speaks its language?]] "#1 movie in the world!" |
| 160 | * When all else fails, you can always go for [[VoteEarlyVoteOften ballot-stuffing.]] Sites like Website/IMDb, Metacritic, Flixster, Rotten Tomatoes, and Website/{{Letterboxd}} include user scores, which are pretty easy to throw armies of unpaid interns or bots at. For some idea of how well this can work, ''Film/TheOogielovesInTheBigBalloonAdventure'''s IMDB score jumped up from averaging 2/10 to averaging 8/10 over the course of thousands of breathless, copypasted, 10/10 reviews. IMDB listings that filter out clear bot or troll accounts (for instance, accounts that have only reviewed one film), such as the Bottom 100, [[https://prod-content-care-community-cdn.sprinklr.com/26653d1b-7bb8-47bf-ac21-90f16f2e4b48/RackMultipart2017061895845cted-95d98343-e481-4396-8100-6c1f24350c71-1456818491.PNG1497752959 showed its true grade at the 2/10 range]] - and indeed, now the site seems to outright discard [[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520498/ratings/?ref_=tt_ov_rt those fake 10s]]. |
| 161 | * On the receiving end of complaints about the [[MonochromeCasting lack of diversity]] in your cast? Make sure there's at least one TokenMinority. |
| 162 | ** Alternatively, claim "historical accuracy" or "realism", even if the plot is set in, say, contemporary New York or a fantasy world full of fairies, elves, trolls and dragons. |
| 163 | * You have the most generic script imaginable? Add LGBT+ characters, [[TwoferTokenMinority preferably of diverse races]]. It's now a serious and unique [=drama/thriller/action flick/whatever=]! |
| 164 | * Release it DirectToVideo, and claim it was too [positive adjective] for theaters. |
| 165 | * Don't want to go through the trouble of re-releasing and sending your movie through the MPAA rating process? Just release a DirectorsCut or UnratedEdition. Even if it's just a few minutes' worth of "extra" material no worse than what ''did'' get into the film. |
| 166 | * Film isn't good enough for awards season? Remember: you don't need to convince general audiences or critics that it's great, [[OscarBait just enough of the people who do the award nominations.]] Just ask ''Film/DoctorDolittle'', which ran 16 nights of free screenings on the studio lot, with complimentary dinner and champagne. The result: nine Oscar nominations (including a Best Picture nod) and two wins, despite terrible reviews and nearly bankrupting its studio! |
| 167 | [[/folder]] |
| 168 | |
| 169 | [[folder:Food]] |
| 170 | * Health claims are this in a nutshell. Expect [[AsbestosFreeCereal "gluten-free" foods that would never normally contain gluten, or "GMO-free" stuff that ''actually'' doesn't contain genes, such as bottled water or salt]]. [[note]]Keep in mind that gluten can appear in some pretty damn weird places (for example: canned soup)[[/note]] (Bonus points for appealing to people who probably don't have celiac disease.) "Low-fat" was popular for a long time, oftentimes indicating a lot of sugar and white flour; indeed, 3 Musketeers has less fat (but more calories) than a Hershey bar, and sodas are 100% fat-free. Since AsYouKnow all organisms produce antioxidants, antioxidants are a rich source of health claims. Want to sell margarine? Until people became aware of ''trans'' fat, "no cholesterol" was a good way to do so. Cereal companies fortify their products so you don't realize you just bought your kids sugar-coated flour. |
| 171 | ** Related: description of products as "80% fat-free" or similar, presumably with the hope that it won't click that it means that it's 20% solid fat. The average bar of milk chocolate is about 70% fat-free. Or if it is 80% fat-free, it is 80% carbohydrates. Food companies have a nasty tendency of substituting fat with carbs since carbs are cheaper. |
| 172 | ** Another trick is to advertise how little fat/calories/etc. the food contains '''per serving''', by setting the serving size unrealistically small. A couple examples: |
| 173 | *** Ore-Ida has started advertising the fact that their fries have 120 calories per serving. What they don't mention is that they defined "1 serving" as 12 fries. To put this in perspective, a ''small'' order of fries at [=McDonalds=] is double that. |
| 174 | *** One bottle of [=VitaminWater=] contains 2.5 servings of it. |
| 175 | *** A typical ''child'' eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast will probably eat about 60 grams of it. Yet this is about 2 servings worth of Frosted Flakes. |
| 176 | *** Tic-Tacs are advertised as "sugar free" in the US. You see, one serving of Tic-Tacs contains less than half a gram of sugar, which means that the manufacturers can, per FDA regulations, round down to zero grams of, i.e. no, sugar per serving. Tic-Tacs are, in fact, mostly sugar, and they get away with this because the manufacturer's suggested serving is one Tic-Tac. |
| 177 | *** This was parodied in ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'', with a health food bar that advertised itself as containing 8 grams of fat per serving. It also considered each bar to contain four servings. |
| 178 | * A lot of ethnic-sounding names tend to do this. You can also do this yourself with your children, saying "florentine" instead of "with spinach". |
| 179 | * Boast on the front of the box that at least one of the ingredients is "real." Bonus points if the ingredient chosen is actually the third most important in the formula, if not lower. |
| 180 | * "All natural." First, all claims about the health benefits of any particular "all natural" food are shaky at best. Second, the FDA has allows foods containing synthetic additives, colorings, and sweeteners to call themselves natural. The word natural is [[http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparency/Basics/ucm214868.htm meaningless]] in the food industry. |
| 181 | ** Other nicely meaningless terms include "artisan" and "gourmet". |
| 182 | * Some of the more "modern" restaurants have taken to putting less food on the plate at higher prices. The food is arranged on the plate in supposed "aesthetically pleasing artistry," which apparently justifies the higher price. |
| 183 | * A confection might look incredible and be shaped in a what's basically a miniature statue, but it will still just taste like hardened sugar. |
| 184 | * Promote your food as having "necessary vitamins", like [=B17=], and sell it as a cancer-fighting/heart-healthy/what have you health food! Who cares if [="B17"=] aka Amygdalin will digest and turn into cyanide? Your customers won't know the difference! |
| 185 | ** Don't point out that the scientific community, medical community, and nutritionists do not recognize the term B17 and do not consider amygdalin a vitamin. Also do not mention that no known chemical pathway of human metabolism uses amygdalin. And of course, studies that found amygdalin useless against cancer and toxic due to being converted to cyanide in the body are either to never be mentioned or to be turned into part of a Big Pharma conspiracy. You are, after all, there to prey on people desperate to save themselves or a loved one from cancer, not to teach good science and offer ethical treatment, comfort, and genuine care. |
| 186 | * Touting candy as being "fat-free". Yeah, a five-pound bag of sugar is "fat-free," too! |
| 187 | -->'''Creator/{{Seanbaby}}:''' "Are you insecure, candy? Because you don't see gravy bragging about being sugar-free. I think this label is only there so your doctor can laugh when he asks how you got diabetes." |
| 188 | [[/folder]] |
| 189 | |
| 190 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 191 | * Use a [[VanityPublishing Vanity Publisher]], or Self-Publish. |
| 192 | * [[NotScreenedForCritics Don't let critics get their hands on your book!]] |
| 193 | * Quote-mine mixed reviews if and when they do get their hands on it. (See also "Film.") |
| 194 | * Create [[CoversAlwaysLie a misleading cover]]. Nowadays, too, you might also publish [[NeverTrustATrailer a misleading trailer]] for the book. |
| 195 | * Add a {{Lemon}} scene, whether it's relevant to the story or not. |
| 196 | * FollowTheLeader: That one book about vampires did really well? Surely another one just like it will do even better! |
| 197 | [[/folder]] |
| 198 | |
| 199 | [[folder:Medicine]] |
| 200 | * Any variation of, "Nothing is stronger." Drugs measure their effectiveness with two different measurements; efficacy and potency. Efficacy measures the strength of an effect, so drugs with the same efficacy will do the same maximum amount of whatever they do. Potency details the concentration of the drug needed to reach maximum effect. Confounding these words makes for some easy spurious claims. |
| 201 | * Alternatively, do you sell the expensive Brand X version of a generic drug? Say "Nothing is stronger." It's technically correct; the generic can be no more effective since it's the same drug and will have identical efficacy. |
| 202 | ** Example from the United States, late 2020: Metformin, one of the cornerstones for treating diabetes mellitus, is typically dosed at 2,000 mg a day for an otherwise healthy diabetic. (Ask your physician, not TV Tropes, about what and why.) A monthly supply of the generic costs $4-8 USD at your generic big-box retailer/discounter with a built-in pharmacy. Glucophage, the brand name, costs an average of about $140 USD. Chemically, they are bioidentical. So technically, nothing is stronger, because the $4 dollar metformin is ''exactly'' as strong as the $140 dollar metformin. (That sound you heard is the jaws of the rest of the world hitting the ground after seeing a minor example of the perverse incentives in the American system.) When you can mark up more than 1,000% with just a brand name, expect every mealy-mouthed marketer to come up with every possible way to take an all-natural, non-GMO colonic extrusion and give it a high-gloss, gluten-free shine. |
| 203 | * Dodge FDA regulations in the United States by making no specific claims to treat any organic disease. Make broad, ambiguous, science-like claims such as your product "Boosts immunity," or some such nonsense. You no longer need to prove your product has an effect, have no obligation to disclose any side-effects, and can't be sued should problems occur since you aren't stepping into the world of medicine ''per se.'' |
| 204 | * "All natural." Hemlock is all natural. Drink up, Socrates! |
| 205 | * Use spurious authorities. One brand of cold and cough remedy advertises it was "Developed by a school teacher." Whether or not the remedy works is one question. Why on earth a school teacher is qualified to create a health care product and sell it is a better one. |
| 206 | ** For an added bonus, when facing legal action as a result of the potentially toxic concentrations of several main ingredients (when used as directed), and the fact that the "clinical trial" was two guys hired by the marketing department; double down and start a viral advertising campaign about "The Remedy the Medical Industry Doesn't Want You To Know About". |
| 207 | * Appeal to crank, discredited, or irrelevant sciences. Some healthcare products are currently appealing to quantum mechanics. They're not only getting the physics wrong but the physics they're invoking just doesn't matter when you move up from pions (not ions) to physiology. |
| 208 | ** Alternatively, dress up non-scientific belief systems as science. Believing in qi is one thing, but as it has never been measured or observed, claims of its scientific validity are spurious. |
| 209 | ** Or learn basic magic and sell snake-oil with special effects. Everything done by "psychic surgeons" has been replicated by magicians palming chicken organs. This technically doesn't ''disprove'' psychic surgery. Likewise, faith healers have been caught using stooges in the audience and similar simple trickery. |
| 210 | * Are you required by law to read off a [[TheLongList long list]] of possible [[SideEffectsInclude side-effects, each more unpleasant and/or downright horrifying than the last?]] Show happy people living their lives, and/or SceneryPorn that has nothing to do with the medication you're advertising. If you imply that those side-effects are rare (regardless of what the clinical studies might say), or that it leads to a better quality of life, enough people will ask their doctors to prescribe the drug. |
| 211 | * Aggressively market to doctors. Give them gifts with your logo on them, even totally out of left-field ones like a ''swing CD'' [[note]] Yes, that really happened. The marketing team behind Oxycontin actually gave doctors a ''swing CD'' to promote their drug, and now Oxycontin is one of the most widely-prescribed medications in the US...[[NiceJobBreakingItHero which played a big role in the ongoing opioid crisis]]. [[/note]], and give them other incentives to prescribe the medication your company made. |
| 212 | ** In the US, do not do this as of 2002, or at least don't get caught. If you happen to be a CorruptCorporateExecutive today, and you have no human decency, do be sure you check the local laws of all your developing markets. You can exploit the human frailties of doctors and officials in some countries on the cheap. |
| 213 | * If you're in the US (or another country that doesn't provide universal healthcare), pay insurance companies on the sly to cover your brand-name medication, and ''only'' your brand-name medication. Even if a generic version (assuming one exists) would work just as well. |
| 214 | ** Just as well, not better. See "Nothing is stronger," above. |
| 215 | ** The actual process is more complex. The insurance company must cover both the generic and the brand name. A higher copay on the brand name incentivized consumers to use the generic. The pharmaceutical companies then started giving manufacturer's coupons to consumers covering the difference. So if the generic drug costs $10 USD a month, and the brand name $100 USD a month, the insurance might ask for a $20 copay on the brand name. So by giving the customer a coupon, the manufacturer takes advantage of their brand name recognition. The insurance covers $80 USD for the generic. The brand name manufacturer profits, the individual consumer gets a brand name (they feel better, but it's pure placebo in most cases), the insurance company adjusts prices, and consumers collectively lose. |
| 216 | * Have a doctor advertise your product. Who cares if they're not ''actually'' a doctor, or are NotThatKindOfDoctor? They can play one on TV because consumers will trust ''anyone'' in a white coat and scrubs. |
| 217 | * Your remedy doesn't work, but it ''does'' have unpleasant side effects? Claim that if the user has the side effects, it means that their body is "healing" or "cleansing" itself. |
| 218 | * Can’t cite any studies proving your product actually works (because it doesn’t)? Testimonials! A satisfied customer gushing about how much their life improved after trying your product is even better than evidence. |
| 219 | [[/folder]] |
| 220 | |
| 221 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 222 | * [[LoudnessWar Turn it up until no one can hear how bad it is through the distortion.]] |
| 223 | * AutoTune it. For a subsequent live performance, lip-sync to the Auto-Tuned track. |
| 224 | ** Better yet, AutoTune it ''during'' the live performance. |
| 225 | * Pay radio companies on the sly to promote it. |
| 226 | * [[WolverinePublicity Get whoever is hot right now to do a verse/hook, or get whichever producer is hot right now to do the beat]] — [[JustHereForGodzilla then hope people can stomach the rest of the song]]. |
| 227 | * There is a saying amongst Finnish guitarists, roughly translated ''If your playing sucks, you do not have enough distortion''. Sufficient amount of fuzz, distortion, and/or overdrive can cover bad fingerwork. |
| 228 | * Get a great producer in for a mediocre (or worse) band, in hopes that the good production will disguise the less impressive songwriting and performances. The trope was referenced by name in this context in [[http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-fake-sound-of-progress-mw0000014237 this review]] of a Music/{{Lostprophets}} album, which praised the production in spite of panning the album. |
| 229 | * Make a music video of a mediocre pop song [[ThreeMinutesOfWrithing full of attractive men and women gyrating in gratuitous displays of]] {{Fanservice}} for the camera. |
| 230 | * Put out sloppy demo recordings as 'previously unreleased tracks' in a nice box set and hype the hell out of it. A good example is Nirvana's ''With The Lights Out''. Especially common with deceased artists, but also happening with a lot of deluxe editions as well. |
| 231 | * Get someone to write a generically-marketable song ''for'' you, instead of singing your own music. |
| 232 | * Make [[CoveredUp a cover of a well-known song]], perhaps one from a different (and maybe more respected) genre. |
| 233 | * "Sample" (or reference in your own lyrics) such a song. |
| 234 | * Why do you think karaoke machines drown your voice in heavy reverb? |
| 235 | * Since the 2010's, promoting songs by saying they've had "x amount of views on-line!" obviously discounts MemeticMutation and BileFascination. As well as Website/{{Vine}} or [=TikTok=] loops apparently counting as a full "play" of a song if it starts with the first six seconds of the number used! |
| 236 | * Revamp your female singer's image from GirlNextDoor to HotterAndSexier. [[{{Gaslighting}} Convince her]] that it was ''her'' idea to break away from ContractualPurity when really you're just using her to cater to the MaleGaze. Remember, SexSells! |
| 237 | ** Count on people SlutShaming your female pop star; there is no bad publicity. Count on the MoralGuardians and mysogynists creating controversy and embrace it. Make some shallow nods to sex-positive feminism. Who cares if the pop star is an actual person who might be suffering a break-down? Who cares what direction she plans to take her own art? |
| 238 | * Generic teen/tween pop song? Have [[AWildRapperAppears a rapper insert a rhyme or two into the song]] to make it seem edgier or cooler than it really is. |
| 239 | [[/folder]] |
| 240 | |
| 241 | [[folder:Politics]] |
| 242 | * The Russian concept of ''pokazuha'' (Показуха, literally "window dressing") is all about this trope. It is basically "art of making things that suck grand to make appear attractive" and pretending to show things to be way better than they really are, e.g. ''There is no obesity problem in USSR'' while the state was on the verge of famine. |
| 243 | ** An interesting inversion of this is the Russian concept of ''reverse cargo cult'', i.e. recognizing things suck but claim they suck elsewhere even worse (while they don't). ''Yeah, the whiteman's airplanes are too bamboo and chaff like ours, but they are better pretending they actually fly, so we as honest aborigines should be proud of that''. An oft-cited example in the USSR was the state of public health care (which had only the redeeming asset it was free in USSR) and claimed it was even more pathetic in US and Europe. |
| 244 | * Rely on the FleetingDemographicRule. |
| 245 | * [[AstroTurf Pretend to be a grassroots movement.]] |
| 246 | * Inexperienced? No way, you're an "outsider." This also provides a useful way to {{handwave}} away (valid) criticism as the angry cries of the sinister elite/rich/establishment/etc. who have the most to lose from your unorthodox candidacy. "Frankly, I'm GLAD they're worried!" |
| 247 | * If you want a war with Alicetonia, describe the Alicetonians as a dangerous threat to the peace-loving people of Bobsylvania. |
| 248 | * Use euphemisms, like "collateral damage" instead of "civilians killed erroneously". |
| 249 | * Name your bill [[SuperFunHappyThingOfDoom something really positive-sounding]], like "The Job Creation Act" or "The USA PATRIOT Act". |
| 250 | ** Generally, politicians are very keen on creative euphemisms: the people who would agree with the unvarnished version will agree, and hopefully a lot of the people who would otherwise oppose it will either not think about or not look into what it actually means and just go along with the pleasant sound of it. For a conservative trying to not set off liberals, "cutting red tape" serves as a more pleasant-sounding euphemism for deregulation (or even privatisation). For a liberal trying not to set off conservatives, "cutting Pentagon (or equivalent) fat" serves as a more pleasant-sounding euphemism for slashing the defense budget. |
| 251 | * If you're in charge of a one-party totalitarian state, not a multi-party democracy where selling policies to voters is essential, [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny pretend you're the latter anyway.]] |
| 252 | * Play up your stance on a hot-button moral issue — ([[GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion abortion]], [[QueerAsTropes same-sex marriage]], [[AnimalWrongsGroup animal rights]], what have you). [[SingleIssueWonk Treat it as the most important thing you (or the party you represent) stand for, even if it is not]]. |
| 253 | * Blame the misfortunes of your city/state/province/country on any number of acceptable targets, such as [[EatTheRich the wealthy elite]], [[KillThePoor the poor always clamoring for more]], etc. If you run out of acceptable targets, go after less acceptable ones. (Can easily overlap with the above point.) |
| 254 | * [[BreadAndCircuses Provide entertainment]] for the populace or at least make sure TheTrainsRunOnTime. |
| 255 | * Ask people [[RefugeInAudacity to thank you]] for taking a deeply hated action that's shown no benefit. |
| 256 | * Have a policy that's unacceptable to most of the public? Say that your policy is really about something else, something that grabs onto people's emotions. |
| 257 | * Play to people's fears: fears about a previously marginalized group gaining power and inverting the traditional power dynamic, those foreigners over there, subversion of traditional "family values," etc. |
| 258 | * Use [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd5rul6EdF0 gerrymandering]] to your advantage. |
| 259 | * When grilled by the press, never give a straight and precise answer. Always fall back on buzzwords and claim that change is happening "[[Series/YesMinister in the fullness of time, at the appropriate juncture]]." |
| 260 | [[/folder]] |
| 261 | |
| 262 | [[folder:Real Estate, [=CVs=], Letters of Recommendation, and Resumes]] |
| 263 | * The Real Estate example is cited over and over without its actual meaning being explained. The famous lines from ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' example shows a gross exaggeration of the subtler way these turds get polished. |
| 264 | ** Words that are objective are signs that a house really is nice and will sell for a high price. For example, "granite counters." This is a desirable trait and it is either present or not. "Maple floors." Either they are there or they are not. Corian is a brand name; it's there or it's not. "Large" and "small" are subjective, but 2500 square feet is 2500 square feet no matter where you go. A high number of words or phrases which do not have a subjective meaning are indicative of a house that really is of high quality and therefore will likely sell at a better price. |
| 265 | ** Subjective but positive words are like damning with faint praise; the claim cannot be objectively measured. "Good neighborhood?" Not only is it subjective, but it doesn't talk about the house in question. "Well-maintained?" Subjective and code for "it's old." "Cozy?" It's small. "Charming?" Whatever it means, it sounds positive. Words that sound nice but cannot be pinned down to a specific, objective meaning are indicative of an all-natural colon extrusion being put through the fantastic, charming, space age, one-of-a-kind surface refinishing system. |
| 266 | ** [[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/13.05/realestate.html?pg=1&topic=realestate&topic_set= Wired Magazine]] visits the topic by reprinting a discussion from Freakonomics. |
| 267 | * Cirricula Vitae and Resumes are read in a similar light by experienced admissions personnel or hiring managers, but written by amateurs who fall into the naive trap of loading up positive-sounding terms. For example, claiming to be a "hard worker" or a "people person" will make most decision-makers yawn and move onto the next one. Every single person applying to a position will claim to be a hard-working people person. Objective achievements that demonstrate your value to the organization you want to join will carry you much further than empty, subjective self-aggrandizement... most of the time. |
| 268 | ** Depending on what you hope to do, Letters of Recommendation or Personal Statements range from a formality to a crucial part of getting where you want to go. The logic here is the same. |
| 269 | * Doctor turned comic writer [[Film/DoctorSeries Richard Gordon]] recalls a reference for employment from a senior GP who once used him as a locum. The killer line was |
| 270 | --> Doctor Gordon carried out his duties entirely to his own satisfaction. |
| 271 | [[/folder]] |
| 272 | |
| 273 | [[folder:Sports]] |
| 274 | * Sell the "potential" of your [[strike:cheap]] young talent. |
| 275 | * Point out the quality of ''[[OpposingSportsTeam opposing]]'' teams coming to your stadium. |
| 276 | * If all else fails, appeal directly to the fans of said opposing teams, offering them the chance to see their players in your stadium. |
| 277 | * Hit them with the ol' "My city's team, right or wrong." Or just call fans of good players and teams, "front runners." |
| 278 | [[/folder]] |
| 279 | |
| 280 | [[folder:Television]] |
| 281 | * One of German TV's most successful... everything (producer, singer, show host, etc.) nowadays is Stefan Raab, who is often said could "aus Scheiße Gold machen"... which is about the German translation of the Trope (literal, "make gold out of shit"). He picks up about any possible concept and makes a fortune with it. Sometimes he also does something that isn't bad to begin with, like Germany's 2010 [[Series/EurovisionSongContest Eurovision]] winner, Music/{{Lena}}. |
| 282 | * Release the series on a smaller, B-list network (or [[ChannelHop move it to one]].) |
| 283 | * Place it in the FridayNightDeathSlot, or a daytime programming block, or show it at OtakuOClock in the morning. |
| 284 | * Claim the show is related to your network's original mission, [[NetworkDecay even if it's only very tangentially related or not related at all]]. Conversely, you claim [[NetworkDecay that the network is going in a new direction]]. |
| 285 | * FollowTheLeader: That one show about rednecks did really well? Surely another one just like it will do even better! |
| 286 | * Create [[NeverTrustATrailer a misleading trailer]] (see "Film") |
| 287 | * Keep telling people to StayTuned. |
| 288 | * Hey, GirlOnGirlIsHot, right? How about a SweepsWeekLesbianKiss, just for the hell of it? |
| 289 | * Producing a TalkShow for daytime TV? Make it a trashy PointAndLaughShow to appeal to the LowestCommonDenominator. Hey, the only people, besides stay-at-home parents, retirees, kids who are too young to go to school, people who work evening or late-night shifts, and disabled people who are at home during the day to watch TV are {{Lower Class Lout}}s, right? |
| 290 | [[/folder]] |
| 291 | |
| 292 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 293 | * A week after the musical ''Subways Are For Sleeping'' opened on Broadway to critical disdain, an ad appeared in the ''New York Herald Tribune'' trumpeting "7 Out of 7 Are Ecstatically Unanimous About ''Subways Are For Sleeping''", quoting rave reviews alongside the names of New York's major drama critics. This ad was the work of the show's producer, David Merrick, who had explored the phone books and found seven men who happened to have the same names as the theatre critics. (Merrick had been planning something of this sort for years, but it could not have been pulled off before the 1960 retirement of longtime ''New York Times'' critic Brooks Atkinson, whose name was unique.) The ''Herald Tribune'' published an apology (other newspapers had perhaps wisely rejected the ad), but what was done was done. |
| 294 | * As pointed out at Website/TheOtherWiki, ''Theatre/CrissAngelBelieve'' was roundly condemned by critics, so the Luxor (its host casino-resort) website instead quotes [[http://www.luxor.com/entertainment/entertainment_believe.aspx celebrities who attended the show]] — one of whom, Holly Madison, was ''Criss' lover'' at the time it opened. |
| 295 | * Seattle's Greg Thompson Productions is the master of [[ManipulativeEditing creative editing]] and [[QuoteMine quote mining]]. A critical response such as "It's amazing to me that anyone would consider this entertainment" would be quoted as "It's amazing!" The most JustForFun/{{egregious}} example of this practice was the promotion for his wife's one-woman cabaret, ''7 Blondes'', [[http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/busted-busted-busted/Content?oid=8861 which he was called on by a local paper.]] |
| 296 | [[/folder]] |
| 297 | |
| 298 | [[folder:Theme Parks]] |
| 299 | * Heavily decorating and theming "Off-The-Shelf" rides such as "Wild Mouse" roller coasters, drop towers, wave swingers, and otherwise. |
| 300 | [[/folder]] |
| 301 | |
| 302 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 303 | * Advertise the game using stunning cinematics that are about 500 times better than the graphics you'll be looking at for 99.99% of the actual game. |
| 304 | * Advertise the game using stunning cinematics and say absolutely nothing about the game itself. |
| 305 | * Advertise the game using footage taken from another game. |
| 306 | * Release a demo consisting of the earliest parts of the game, cutting out before your [[UnexpectedGameplayChange sudden gameplay change]] or early enough to mask that there is almost no variety in the content. Don't want potential customers finding out that DisappointingLastLevel pops up about halfway through Level 2. |
| 307 | ** ''Halo 2's'' campaign mode was a ''very'' infamous case of this when the game was originally released in 2004. The incredible graphics, gameplay and the level presented in the E3 2003 demo had to be scrapped because developer Bungie realized mere ''days'' after the showcase that the Xbox could not run the game in its current form. As a result, they had to start from scratch, and since Microsoft didn't give them enough time to properly remedy the campaign mode, Bungie admitted to slapping together the single player the best they could, for better or worse. As upset as gamers were at the time, Bungie felt even more torn up. |
| 308 | ** Though not necessarily considered a horrible game, ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'' could be seen as falling into this part of the trope. All the previews and demos showed off the action-adventure parts of the game, but the [[UnexpectedGameplayChange real-time strategy]] battles which made up just as much of the game (if not more) as the action-adventure parts were completely absent. Some reviewers and players were more than a little unhappy with such an important part of the gameplay being kept hidden away and may have lead to the ultimately mixed reception that the game has. |
| 309 | *** This was particularly sad because ''Brütal Legend'' had tremendous potential as a multiplayer game thanks to the RTS elements, but keeping them hidden away crippled the possibility of public matchmaking for the game's players. |
| 310 | * Buy advertising in industry magazines and websites. Even if they don't give you a glowing review in return, the previews will be universally positive and encourage preorders. |
| 311 | * Find handful of moderately, but not too popular youtubers or review channels and simply provide them with gift copies and pre-release access. The combination of the gifting and legal papers signed to get it will be more than enough to make them praise your game, offering free marketing buzz right before premiere, increasing your sales. |
| 312 | * Draw in the fanboys by stating that a few members of the development team of a more popular franchise worked on the game on either the box or the ad copy. It doesn't matter if they only worked for the company for a week, never did anything for the development of your game, and/or haven't produced a game in 15 years, you've got instant credibility now! |
| 313 | * Promote the game as having original music from a huge rock star, while completely leaving out the fact that only one song in the entire game was composed by him. Alternatively, neglect to mention whether him being a famous rock star ''actually makes him a good composer.'' |
| 314 | * If a game is being released on multiple consoles, advertise and show the features of the more powerful, robust versions. Downplay the differences present on the weaker systems, or don't acknowledge them at all until release. Bonus points for billing the weaker versions as "built from the ground up for" said system. |
| 315 | * Play up RatedMForMoney rather than gameplay - gore and digital breasts can sell a lot of discs before word gets out about how bad the game is. This was done infamously by EA in a marketing campaign which showed how the violence in the game ''{{VideoGame/Dead Space 2}}'' seriously offended "your mom", to which the reaction from the gaming community at large was "Thanks for making all gamers look like immature boys who worship gore, jerks, not like we aren't already stigmatized for that perception." Worse, the game is ''rated M'', meaning the intended target audience is old enough that they should no longer care what their parents think. |
| 316 | ** The industry now mixes the above tactic with the manipulation of outrage, operating under the idea that there is (almost) no such thing as bad publicity. |
| 317 | *** The Game Theory video series did a July 2015 episode [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/game-theory/10199-Video-Game-Marketing?utm_source=latest&utm_medium=index_carousel&utm_campaign=all listing games which used this tactic]] with a discussion of the media publicists who used these tactics. Notable offenders include ''VideoGame/{{Carmageddon}}'', ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'', ''VideoGame/{{Burnout}} 2'', and ''VideoGame/{{Hatred}}''. |
| 318 | *** The ''Hatred'' devs have revealed their game's trailer's shock tactics were intentional in an interview with Polygon. ''Hatred'' has received mediocre reviews from critics and users, but it sure sold well for such a cheap title. |
| 319 | * Similar to movies, if the initial launch does ''horribly'', re-release the game under a new title. We're looking at you, ''The War Z'', aka ''Infestation: Survivor Stories''. |
| 320 | * Have well-endowed characters' breasts {{jiggle|Physics}}. |
| 321 | * If the game has any sort of KarmaMeter, no matter how simplistic and shallow it is, play it up as a subtle and detailed morality system that will change the game in reaction to the player's choices and so on. |
| 322 | ** Likewise, if there is ''any'' semblance of choice in a {{Player Character}}'s actions with regards to how the plot plays out, milk it for all it's worth. Say the game world will change meaningfully and appropriately based on player decisions, even if there are less than half a dozen decisions and they only result in minor aesthetic changes. Don't forget to add in a bunch of hype about how much player choice will lead to a wide variety of different endings, [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 even if all boil down to one three-way choice at the end that determines little more than what Instagram filter is laid over the ending cutscene.]] |
| 323 | * On a related note, if the game gives you any form of making decisions in the story, talk about how all the player's actions and decisions have astronomical impact on the story and no two decisions ever play out the same. Even if the choices only lead to the same resolutions. |
| 324 | * Since Platform/{{Steam}} only allows users to review individual games and doesn't display any ratings for bundles, some poorly-reviewed games, such as the PC ports of ''Pro Evolution Soccer 2016'' and ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'', have been reissued as single-game bundles to conceal the lack of value. |
| 325 | * Apple store developers will occasionally use odd methods to inflate a poorly-received product's score. For instance, the notorious ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper Mobile'' redirects people who rate it 1-4 stars to a service page and makes them jump through several hoops, causing people who just want to register their dislike for the game to give up in disgust and do something else. Five-star reviews, on the other hand, just get published. |
| 326 | * Got a female character? Great! [[{{Fanservice}} Put her in a]] ChainmailBikini or other sexy costume (whether it's logical attire or not). Don't have one? No problem! [[LadyNotAppearingInThisGame Just stick a sexy female character in the ads or on the cover anyway!]] |
| 327 | * Is your game falling behind in development? Advertise with awesome concept art. ''VideoGame/{{Daikatana}}'' made people pretty excited with concept art of the three main characters and ''nothing else'', several years before anything was even slightly playable. |
| 328 | * Hire a celebrity to play a minor role. Whether they have any actual experience or skill at voice acting doesn't matter, all you need is the name recognition. |
| 329 | * Is your game a WideOpenSandbox? Give a measurement in square feet of just how large your sandbox is and emphasize it in every preview. Don't, of course, show that most of the game world is barren and lifeless outside two or three towns, or how nightmarish attempting to actually navigate it is, or even that 80% of the map is water or unscaleable mountains. |
| 330 | * Promote the theoretical maximum potential of what the game's engine could theoretically do, rather than what you can actually do in the game. |
| 331 | * Call the game a "love letter" or an "homage" to classic or proven hit titles. Doesn't matter how well they actually implement the elements from said titles, whether it's a blatant carbon copy or you have to really stretch to find actual similarities between then. |
| 332 | * Give your game easy-to-use modding capabilities, and don't forget to hype it in your marketing campaign. As long as the modding tool works, it makes no difference what your game is or how empty or broken you will deliver it for the release. Mods will fix it all and do so for free, so no need to underpay some intern for debugging or providing actual content for the game! A true win-win scenario for your company. |
| 333 | * Did your studio use an established IP to make a sequel that [[InNameOnly shares only the title and character names]] with the game series so far? Just say it is taking the franchise into new, uncharted territories. Even better, describe changing the whole gameplay as "bold steps in game design" and "badly needed modernisation", especially when you are ripping-off currently popular gameplay elements and implement them in the most bland and uninspired fashion. |
| 334 | * Speaking of, is your game a shameless ripoff of a popular game? Take the ''VideoGame/EnchantedPortals'' route and claim "[[https://perpgames.com/game/enchanted-portals/ it's been favourably compared]]" to the game it's mimicking, downplaying that it's ''only'' been compared to that other game and that most ([[TechnicalTruth though not quite all]]) comparisons have been ''unfavourable''. |
| 335 | [[/folder]] |
| 336 | |
| 337 | |
| 338 | ---- |
| 339 | |
| 340 | |
| 341 | !!InUniverse examples |
| 342 | |
| 343 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 344 | * The dark comedy ''Film/WagTheDog'' features Creator/DustinHoffman and Creator/RobertDeNiro as a Hollywood producer and political strategist, respectively, who have to hoodwink the American public about a presidential sex scandal. They fake a war and use everything at their disposal to Polish The Turd and make a ''fake'' war seem real, emotional, heroic, and touching. For example, they introduce a war hero character. A military prisoner is selected for the role. He turns out to be an insane rapist who dies before the public can see him. [=DeNiro=] and Hoffman make him a martyr figure who makes the whole USA cry ManlyTears. |
| 345 | [[/folder]] |
| 346 | |
| 347 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 348 | * In ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid'', Greg's school does this to foods to encourage healthy eating. For example, bland carrot sticks become [[XtremeKoolLetterz Xtreme Sportz Stix]] despite being carrots with no real sports connection. |
| 349 | [[/folder]] |
| 350 | |
| 351 | [[folder:Newspaper Comics]] |
| 352 | * ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'': Dogbert [[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2004-04-20/ demonstrates how to do this for real estate.]] |
| 353 | ** Scott Adams wrote an entire Dilbert-themed book, ''The Way of the Weasel'', explaining how language may be misused to sell crap and to make bad situations look way better than they are. |
| 354 | [[/folder]] |
| 355 | |
| 356 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 357 | * The Working Joes in ''VideoGame/AlienIsolation'' look like the unholy spawn of ''Advertising/TheCrashDummies'' and the ''Music/BlueManGroup'', and basically seem to act like [[UsefulNotes/MicrosoftOfficeAssistant Clippy]] piloting a mannequin, because Seegson Synthetics was ''way'' behind the Weyland-Yutani Corporation's line of Synthetics and simply couldn't catch up. Thus, they spun it with the claim "[[{{Slogan}} with the Working Joes, you always know exactly what you're dealing with]]" to feed into general mistrust of human-looking androids and try and claim it's a feature. Nobody is fooled, these things only seem to be found in Seegson-owned operations, and even Amanda comments that "no wonder Seegson is losing the tech race" the first time she sees one of these things. |
| 358 | [[/folder]] |
| 359 | |
| 360 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 361 | * About the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "The Cloud", ''Website/SFDebris'' said it was very well performed despite the terrible script. "It's like a four-tier wedding cake made out of shit. It's an incredible achievement, a masterpiece in some respects. But the point that cannot be missed is that it's made out of shit." |
| 362 | * ''WebVideo/JonTron'' mocks the infamous ''VideoGame/Bubsy3D'' for this, noting how they listed the most basic of "features" a platforming game could have, such as running, jumping, swimming, and extra lives, [[AsbestosFreeCereal as selling-points on the back of the box]]. |
| 363 | --> '''[=JonTron=]:''' Okay, hold the phone! Having 1-Ups in your game is ''not'' a selling point! Let alone a bullet on the back of the box! You can just tell they were ''really'' stretching to say even one good thing about this game. |
| 364 | * ''WebVideo/{{Rerez}}'' points out how the ''Platform/GameCom'' heavily advertised its speech capabilities to cover up the fact that the thing was far less impressive graphically and gameplay-wise than even the ''Platform/GameBoy'': |
| 365 | --> ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' was used heavily in Game.com's marketing to highlight the consoles amazing speech capabilities. Sure, it speaks! So what?! I didn't get this to have a conversation, I got it to ''play games!'' |
| 366 | [[/folder]] |
| 367 | |
| 368 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 369 | * Butt-Head from ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': "You can't polish a turd, Beavis." Except Beavis already has; he keeps it in his dresser. |
| 370 | * Marge is [[NeverNeedsSharpening educated on this]] by Lionel Hutz during her stint as a real estate agent on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. Is the house tiny? Some would call it "cozy!" Is it dilapidated? No, it's "rustic!" It's ''on fire''?! "Motivated seller!" |
| 371 | * An episode of ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'' brings us "The Shovelizer", an exercise machine that is nothing more than a rusty shovel. Testimonials to its effectiveness are glowing with everyone being too stupid to realize that the only reason they're losing weight and gaining muscle is that they're just moving around a lot more. |
| 372 | [[/folder]] |
| 373 |
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