Blatant lying on TV ad.

Laz123

"I cough, I sneeze, I laugh and my weak bladder's gone!"

No it hasn't. It's still there but your panties are full of urine!

NBLondon

esuhl wrote: »

Now you see scientists in lab coats working with DNA... and quick as a flash, we're back to selling you mud.

But it's mud with an added ingredient that sounds really scientific because it's got Oxy and a number in it and ends in -ane. My wife finds these hilarious (she is a scientist) and even I, with only my distant memory of A level Chemistry, can work out that the name is nonsense. The high price is because of the complexity of extracting the snails from the mud, then extracting the Oxy10cobblersane from the snails and stirring it back in.


As for cleaning products - I have yet to find one that leaves such a perfectly precise dividing line between dirty and shiny in one swipe. Mind you - I don't have those incredibly filthy and thoughtless people in my house like in most adverts. Must be related to those houses where you apparently need an automatic air freshener going off in every room every ten minutes because the family honk...

peter_the_piper

"No Veneer in Here"

Ooops!

Stevie_Palimo

That Thomas cook one where they were on 10.000 foot high water slides and the pool seemed to be about 100 miles square, Never know how this one is not against any ASA rules/guidelines.

Cornucopia

My "favourites" fall into two groups:-

- The absolutely inane, too frequently repeated stupid ones. Cosmetics fill most of that category. I also despair at Nationwide's venture into earnest young poetry. Look - snowflakes.

- The (admittedly few) weasel-words ones. Most obvious example, the Microsoft one with the Stage Set designer: "I could never do that with my Mac". "You" could never do it? What about everyone else?

The next thing to be regulated I think should be the "per month" car ads. There is a vast difference between "£169 per month (£1000 down)" and "£169 per month (£5678 down)". I think the answer to that one should be that advertisers cannot use an unqualified headline "per month" claim unless the deposit (less discount) is no more than X times the monthly payment (perhaps 9 times).

redux

Zero emissions from electric motor cars.

This is definitely a blatant lie.

I contacted the Advertising Standards Authority, suggesting that the phrase zero emissions should be outlawed. It is a myth that is not true, as the emissions are merely transferred from exhaust pipe to power station, and also the original production of the batteries consumes more resources.

After 4 months the ASA replied, saying they could not do anything as I had not actually specified any particular advert.

I replied the same day with two video examples on websites.

That was 2 or 3 years ago. As they haven't yet replied I have no idea whether they are still working on the case.

[Deleted User]

My favourite is the picture of food on a plate with "Serving suggestion" printed in the corner.

Just to be clear, we're not suggesting that the food actually looks like the picture on the packet, we're just pointing out that you can use a plate if you were wondering how to put it on the table without making a mess of the tablecloth.

Ezmondino

esuhl wrote: »

The worst ones are for cosmetics where all facts are replaced by opinion. Like, "this cream reduces the appearance of wrinkles*" and in the small-print it says, "* As judged by 13 out of 20 slightly blind people experiencing a placebo effect, who we bribed with free food until they would agree to anything. Please ignore the twenty-seven times we tried this with other groups and not one of the twenty agreed with us.".

You could replace every cosmetics commercial with a voiceover that says, "This is stuff. We have no proof, but some people think it makes them look better. We've made it really expensive and put it in fancy packaging so we can fool gullible people into thinking it's all scientifically proven. But it's just mud out of our back garden with all the snails taken out."

Then there's what can only be called etymological abuse. Have a product that you want to sell, but it doesn't do anything? Just think of what you want people to think it does, then invent a word that sounds a bit like it. Hey presto, you can circumvent any rules requiring adverts to be honest!

You can sell "Nutrisse" that isn't nutritious! You can sell "activus regularum" has nothing to do with "regularity".

Or you can go all out with the "now you see it, now you don't trick". As in, "this product was inspired by the science of DNA"... and then skim over the fact that there is no scientific basis for any product claim and make it sound like some kind of advanced nanotechnology that must work wonders and cost a fortune... when it's just mud out of their back garden with all the snails removed. Now you see scientists in lab coats working with DNA... and quick as a flash, we're back to selling you mud.

Thanks for the lunchtime chuckles :dance:

shaun_from_Africa

esuhl wrote: »

You can sell "activus regularum" has nothing to do with "regularity".

Sounds just like something that Harry Potter would say when setting his magical alarm clock.


I'm sure that somewhere in the UK there may be someone who dresses like this:

So it might not be lying but IMO the advert should still be banned just for the cringe factor alone.

paddyrg

z1a wrote: »

"Flash cleaner" - "Cleans the impossible"
Obviously it can't, but according to advertising standards it's OK to lie as it's called "Puffery"
When I come to sell my car I think I'll say it does 250MPH, and averages 400MPG, and it's OK 'cos it's just puffery.

I'm not convinced your example is legitimately 'puffery' - you mention very specific (and testable) figures whereas if you claimed 'from here to there in a heartbeat' you would stand a better chance of not being sued. Ultimately, though, only the courts would decide