Deception vs. Fluff; The Line?

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
1

I wanted to put this in a separate thread from the Mickey D one…but this point about marketing, truthfulness and deception came up more than once…

  1. It seems to me that marketing, by it’s very nature, is not MEANT to be a package insert or an ingredient list…it is meant to put the best “face” on something in order to move product. It also seems to me that marketing is meant to stay a “bit ahead” of the ability of a product to deliver.

Think about it…how “wonderful” can one make toilet paper, sanitary napkins and shampoo? BUT PEOPLE HAVE DONE IT! To the point that one shampoo can induce multiple orgasms (it’s IMPLIED of course!).

  1. I don’t agree that because Mickey D’s has Happy Meals, toys and Playgrounds on their sites that they are (by extension) trying to say that all of their menu is “healthy”…I think that they just want to have families to come in their restaurants, whom AS A WHOLE spend some serious coin.

  2. I think that there is a difference between “hype” (my shampoo can lead to mutiple orgasms or my toilet paper can put your infant into a restful nights sleep) and “deception” (like the herbal product that increase breast size, or “cancels out” fat calories, etc).

Agree? Disagree?

Discussion?

Mufasa

2

Mufasa –

I think it’s pretty difficult to lay out a hard-and-fast line that would be applicable across all sorts of advertised products, but I think you touched on a basic distinction.

That distinction is between making specific claims on the one hand, and what someone says was implied on the other. Implied stuff is pretty well accepted fluff in every area except drugs and securities, whereas specific claims require factual back up.