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Advertising Stock Phrases
(aka: For Your People By Your People)

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Advertising Stock Phrases (trope)
So call now! Operators are standing by to take your call.

So don't delay; act now
Supplies are running out
Allow if you're still alive
Six to eight years to arrive
Smash Mouth, "Walkin' on the Sun", parodying these kinds of ad phrases.

Time is limited! Call now, and you too can learn the ways of stock phrases. Yes, you reader! So don't wait, don't delay! Call now while there's still time!

Commercials and marketing campaigns feature several recurrent phrases that aim to attract consumers or convince them to buy the advertised product. These always have the same attached meaning and the exact same phrasing (maybe with a small tweak when appropriate or punny). And so, we have:

    open/close all folders 

    For your people, by your people 
An epiphora that aims to assure the consumer that the product has been crafted by people belonging to the same demography or subculture as them. Consequently, it's tailor-made for them.

    If you call before midnight tonight / Call now! 
A deadline or restriction gives an impression of scarcity and fools viewers into thinking they're getting a special deal. Of course, the company has no way of knowing when you watched their ad, nor the operators can know if it was running when you called; so it's all arbitrary.

Other things the ad may claim to make it seem as if they have a high demand include: "Last names A to M may call today, all others must wait until tomorrow", "Supplies are limited/going fast/running out", "Offer will expire " (when is that, nobody knows), and "We're only giving this offer to the first 100 callers".

The company can sweeten it up by throwing a special bonus in if you order the product before a given time limit. The extras are generally either more refills, a travel-sized version of the product, a double order, something completely unrelated that they have a warehouse full of, or free shipping.

This takes advantage of the principle of scarcity, wherein, if one thinks that something's not going to be available in the future, one is more likely to buy it now, even if one wouldn't have bought it in the future anyway. It also encourages spontaneous buying, by preventing the consumer from thinking if he really needs the product, and deciding that maybe he doesn't.

    If you like this work of fiction... 
... then you'll love this completely mundane product. No, really, you will. Would they allow this Product Placement of this otherwise completely irrelevant product if you wouldn't love it?

More soberly, this is about product placement or tie-in that is so minor to the work that you don't recall the product placement in the main work—you only know about the connection from the advertising for the product. This includes cases where the product isn't in the film but is tied in with it anyhow.

    It works itself 
Sometimes something is supposed to be so intuitive that the work needed from an actual person is minimal. This is rarely the case, but the thought of making something ridiculously easy is appealing.

This usually comes in two forms:

  1. An advertising slogan that touts the supposed intuitiveness of the product. Even accepting it as hyperbole, it's still rarely the case.
  2. Joking about how cliché or awesome an idea is so that a writer or director will supposedly know all they have to do just from that idea.

When the product is nothing but as advertised, it often incurs in You Can't Miss It situations.

    Starting from 
You know that saying "you get what you pay for"? Well, that's not always exactly true. If what you're buying "starts from" a certain amount of money, there are two possibilities:

It's the most basic, bare-bones edition, the one you shouldn't be buying if you're a self-respecting consumer. If there's a picture, though, you can bet it'll be of the most tricked-out version there is. You don't really want to settle for less, do you?

It starts at this price but it sure doesn't end there. Don't forget to add in taxes, fees, charges, insurance, shipping, handling, delivery, and the tip. In extreme cases, these costs are higher than the price of the actual product, but at best they'll be obliquely referred to in eye-straining fine print at the bottom.

    Up to __ or more 
Some ads claim you can save "up to 50% or more." The only amount you are guaranteed not to save is precisely 50%. So basically the ad is saying you could save any amount at all, including nothing. The store could even get away with increasing the price, as that would be less than 50% off due to how maddeningly non-specific these claims are.

The intent is that "up to 50% or more", instead of being interpreted as "anything", is often interpreted as "most likely 50% with possibilities of taking it to the next level", and thus the advertisers try to get consumers thinking they could save even more than that; i.e. "at least 50% off" without having to say that and be bound to it.

This can apply to cleaning products as well. If they claim it kills "Up to 99.9% of germs", what they mean is that it could kill any quantity of bacteria from none at all up to 99.9%, but they specifically won't kill all germs. This is Truth in Television because nothing short of ionizing radiation (and even then) can exterminate 100% microscopic creatures. Likewise, beauty products, like anti-dandruff treatments, will tout that they will leave your hair "up to 100% flake-free".

This phrasing can also be used for numbers that aren't percentages, e.g. "allow up to 30 minutes or more for delivery". As a million years would fall under "or more", such wording means they don't actually have any time limit.

Other phrases commonly used by pitchmen include:

See also Other Stock Phrases, and Advertising Tropes.

Please do not add examples; this page is Definition-Only and merely defines and explains the term.


Alternative Title(s): It Works Itself, For Your People By Your People, If You Call Before Midnight Tonight

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