It's common knowledge that advertisers don't have the audience's best interests at heart—their primary goal is to sell a product, after all. But what they're all saying is still technically true, right? ...right?
In reality, marketing has a long history of using deceptive, manipulative, and downright false claims in order to turn listeners into customers. In past centuries, they could claim literally anything with no legal consequences, but with the advent of truth-in-advertising laws and media regulatory agencies, there are now plenty of rules they have to follow (or try to skirt). Expect liberal use of Weasel Words, Metaphorically True statements, and other duplicitous claims that are carefully worded to imply something without legally saying it outright.
Compare Polish the Turd, Lying by Omission, and Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
Subverting Regulations:
- Lite Crème: Replacing words that are protected or regulated in food advertising laws with similar-sounding ones.
- Rattling Off Legal: Disclaimers are read off too fast for listeners to follow along.
- Read the Fine Print: Burying an important disclaimer or caveat in the fine print of an advertisement.
- Side Effects Include...: Medical advertisements that subvert the legal requirements to list side effects of the medication or treatment they sell.
- Unreadable Disclaimer: Mandatory disclaimers and caveats in a visual advertisement are printed very small or otherwise made difficult to read.
Meaningless Messaging:
- Absolute Comparative: Saying a product is better or has more, without specifying what it's actually better or more than.
- Asbestos-Free Cereal: Making an inconsequential trait about a product into a selling point.
- Crunchtastic: Using made-up words that sound positive in an advertisement.
- Get the Sensation: Emphasizing how good a product makes the user feel instead of what it is or does.
- Here Comes the Science: Meaningless or incorrect scientific-sounding jargon to make a product seem more advanced.
- Made of Shiny: Emphasizing how beautiful a product is instead of its uses.
- Magically Delicious: Using fantastical or fictional elements as a way to advertise a product without actually depicting it.
- New and Improved: Saying a product has been updated for the better without clarifying how it's been changed.
- Parity Product Paradox: Every product claims to be "the best," even if they're no better than one another.
- This Product Will Change Your Life: Portraying a product as revolutionary and life-altering without describing how it will do so.
- Up to __ or More: A phrase that ultimately makes no sense but allows advertisers to display a big number when talking about savings, discounts, or something similarly positive.
Implied Value Judgements:
- Adjacent to This Complete Breakfast: Associating something with health food in an advertisement to imply it's healthy too, regardless of how nutritious it actually is.
- Advertising by Association: Advertising a work based on its creator's past successes, regardless of their similarity to this work.
- All-Natural Snake Oil: Implying a product is better solely because it's "natural."
- Celebrity Endorsement: A product must be good if a popular celebrity (is paid to) like it.
- Not Available in Stores: Advertisements that claim that the product, or a special offer for one, is exclusive and only available through the information in the ad.
- Overly Cool Play Space: Children's advertisement that show the children who use the product in an impossibly cool and tricked-out room or playspace.
- Sex for Product: Depicting a product as being used by sexually successful people, with the unspoken implication that anyone who buys it will become desirable too.
- Stepford Consumer: Everyone in an advertisement is always overly excited about the product.
Attacking the Competition:
- Brand Names Are Better: Claiming that a generic product is inferior to a brand-name one, even if they're functionally identical.
- Competing Product Potshot: Directly insulting or challenging a rival company in an advertisement.
- Made in Country X: Using stereotypes about a given country's products to imply that any product from that country is good or bad.
- Scapegoat Ad: Portraying a competitor's employees or services as incompetent or otherwise subpar.
- Strawman Product: Attacking a parody or exaggeration of a rival company's products.
- Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: Someone who doesn't have the product is depicted as incapable of performing a simple task.
Unscientific Evidence:
- I'm Not a Doctor, but I Play One on TV: Advertisements with actors playing professionals to give the appearance of professionals endorsing the product.
- Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Using and abusing statistics to get data that reflect positively on your product.
- Nine out of Ten Doctors Agree: Surveying a few professionals to make it seem as if the vast majority of professionals endorse a product.
- Push Polling: Using a deceptive or manipulative polls to manufacture the (supposed) consumer or expert consensus the advertiser wants.
Psychological Tricks:
- ...And 99¢: Selling a product for one cent (or equivalent) less than a round number so people subconsciously overestimate how cheap it is.
- Appeal to Flattery: Buttering up the audience to make them more receptive to the product.
- If You Call Before Midnight Tonight: Implying that there's a time-limited special offer to create a sense of urgency.
- Hope Mongering: Using hopes for success and happiness in an advertisement to win over the audience.
- Operators Are Standing By: Claiming that there will be a massive rush of orders for the product in order to make it seem more desirable.
- Payment Plan Pitch: Selling a product with a series of small payments so it seems cheaper than a single large payment.
- Poverty Porn: Using imagery of the poor and wretched to tug on the audience's heartstrings.
- Reverse Psychology Marketing: Using Self-Deprecation (such as claiming that Our Product Sucks) or mocking the target audience to drum up interest in a product.
- Scare Campaign: An advertisement (usually by a political campaign attacking the opposition) that's meant to make the audience feel scared or intimidated.
Deceptive Presentation:
- Advertised Extra: Giving a minor character in a work outsized prominence in the marketing material.
- Advertising Disguised as News: An online advertisement or sponsored article designed to be confused for a normal news article.
- AstroTurf: A Viral Marketing campaign that conceals its affiliation and tries to pass itself off as the genuine opinions of ordinary people.
- Billing Displacement: A now-famous actor's bit part in a work is greatly emphasized by marketing to imply that they play a major role.
- Clickbait Gag: A web link that uses hyperbolic or exaggerated claims to entice or dupe viewers into clicking on it.
- Commercial Switcheroo: An advertisement that seems to be marketing one product but is actually marketing another.
- Consumer Conspiracy: Portraying a product as some special insider secret that the company is sharing because they care more about helping consumers than making a profit.
- Deceptively Simple Demonstration: Product demonstrations that make it seem far less complex than its real-life functions.
- Hive-Mind Testimonial: Cutting together a bunch of different people's comments to make it seem like they're all in agreement or saying the same thing.
- Never Needs Sharpening: Using creative wording to portray a product's downside as a selling point.
- Phony Article: A print advertisement designed to resemble a normal article in a newspaper or magazine.
- Phony Newscast: A TV advertisement designed to resemble a news report.
- Selective Stupidity: Cherry-picking a survey's responses to make a certain demographic look stupid, so they reinforce an ad's selling point.
- Self Promotion Disguised As News: A media company slips cross-promotion for their products into their news segments.
- Similar to the Show: A TV advertisement made to be confused for part of the program it's running alongside.
- The Man Is Sticking It to the Man: A product is marketed as rebellious and subversive when the company making it is anything but.
Blatant Dishonesty:
- Advertising-Only Continuity: The plot of a media product according to the advertisement is completely different from the actual work.
- Covers Always Lie: A cover or poster for a media product has no resemblance to the actual content.
- Lady Not-Appearing-in-This-Game: Using hot women in an advertisement for a game that has no hot women in it.
- Lurid Tales of Doom: A newspaper publishes obviously impossible stories to drive up sales.
- Missing Trailer Scene: A scene found in a trailer is nowhere in the actual media work.
- Never Trust a Title: A work's title doesn't reflect its contents in the slightest.
- Never Trust a Trailer: A trailer for a media product doesn't represent its actual plot or contents at all.
- Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: A character in a media product is conspicuously omitted from the marketing material.
- Superdickery: Comic book covers depicting a shocking twist (such as a hero's Face–Heel Turn) that actually aren't part of the comic's story.
- Very False Advertising: A travel destination is advertised as far nicer than in reality.
- Wolverine Publicity: Using a popular character from a franchise to advertise a work they don't appear in at all.
Specific Products Marketed With Dishonest Advertising:
- Allegedly Free Game: A video game that markets itself as free-to-play, but doesn't advertise having lots of microtransactions or paywalled content.
- Fake Food: Food in an advertisement is always made to look way better than the actual product being sold.
- Gourmet Pet Food: A pet food advertisement depicts it being made out of human-quality food.
- Mail-Order Novelty: A tchotchke advertised in a magazine or comic book, which (usually) just ends up being utterly useless.
- The Mockbuster: A knockoff media work that hopes its appearance will lead to it being confused for a more popular work.
- Sea Aping: Sea Monkeys are depicted as intelligent little merpeople in their advertisements instead of the miniature brine shrimp they really are.
- Shallow News Site Satire: A so-called "news" website whose articles all rely on clickbait and hyperbole to get traction.
- Shaving Is Science: Commercials for razors always use over-the-top scientific imagery and terminology to make their products seem more advanced.
- Stealth Cigarette Commercial: An anti-smoking ad that sabotages its own message because a tobacco company was legally required to produce it.
