Are Commercials and Products Really Killing Us?

[Ivan Seeking]

This stuff kills me. I just saw that Albertsons meat is so good because of their "natural aging process". Ummmmmmm... :uhh: ...you mean you let it sit around for a long time before I buy it?

Bread, made fresh daily? I want it made stale!

Also, Integral and I agree. Herbicides for home use barely work, if at all.

Tsu caught a good one the other day. The Oral B electric toothbrush is the one most preferred by dentists. The other one [EDIT: Sonicare] is the one most preferred by dental professionals.

And my favorite type of all: Take our pill to cure whatever and you might [enter extremely rapid speach] lose bowel control forever die of a heart attack have a stroke become sterile turn green and explode... Also, FYI, the new psoriasis shot can kill you. I forget the odds but they were pretty steep for me considering that psoriasis is mostly just a nuisance.

 

[Kakarot]

lol i hate commercials for those fake drugs that will cure this or enhance that because they all say they are 100% natural. if i want a drug i don't want natural hippie crap, i want real medical drugs from a laboratory not some herbs ground into a pill.

 

[Moonbear]

lol i hate commercials for those fake drugs that will cure this or enhance that because they all say they are 100% natural. if i want a drug i don't want natural hippie crap, i want real medical drugs from a laboratory not some herbs ground into a pill.

Yep, it's completely safe because it's 100% natural. So is hemlock, go take some of that.

I only tried an herbicide once at home. I thought I'd give it a try on the weeds growing between the cracks in the driveway since I didn't have to worry about killing anything around the area that I meant to keep, and thought it might do as the package said about preventing regrowth. Ha ha ha! Those dandelions just laughed, thanked me for the drink, and kept right on growing! The only thing that gets rid of dandelions is good old-fashioned digging (though, I'll never know how it is that I can meticulously go over my entire lawn removing dandelions in a very methodical pattern, get to the end, turn around, and still see a lawn full of dandelions...talk about weeds from hell! Try debunking that one! )

I do like the gum commercials that now make fun of the 4 out of 5 dentists surveyed, where you always wondered what happened with the 5th dentist (I guess that's the first one they asked before realizing they had to pay to get the answer they wanted on the survey).

 

[Chronos]

What fun would truth in advertising be? Marketing professionals have kids too [well some of them do]. A good commercial is more entertaining than most Leno skits. What would modern culture be like without natural male enhancement and beer commercials? A friend of mine once bought an epilady. She carried it around telling everyone how great it worked in an attempt to lure them into trying it. It didn't work quite as good as duct tape, but had more surprise value. And where would we be without Ronco products? Did you ever see the infommercial where Ron Pompeil personally demonstrated his spray-on hair? I dang near soiled myself.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What would modern culture be like without natural male enhancement and beer commercials?

It has been a lifelong hobby of mine to study commercials and try to figure out the thinking that went into them. By chance one day I was flying home from somewhere and sat next to a top tier commercial director. Recently he did one of the staten drug commercials, crud, what is it, the one with Patrick Steward narrating and people living in a surrealistic environment? Anyway, as you might imagine, he doesn't run into many people who want to talk about his craft. It was was a very interesting discussion.

I was objecting to the commercial for Hummers, where the kid sees the rules - First one to the bottom of the hill wins - for a soap box derby-like race. He builds a little Hummer to leave the track and cut across the hill, bypassing the course, and ultimately allowing him to win the race. I claim this teaches kids that it is good, or at least it pays to cheat. His position was that the kid was thinking outside of the box, pun not intended, and he won because he was creative. I responded [approx], "but the course is clearly implied, and it is cheating because the rules should be clear to everyone. He chose to make a sneaky interpretation of the rules". Response from him; [eyes roll], "ya, someone mentioned that". I almost started laughing. He sounded so despondent.

 

[Moonbear]

Ooh, speaking of infomercials, there was one on last night that I caught part of for hair care products. They had these women whose hair had clearly been teased up to look horrid and tangled, then had some hairdresser come along and spray the product along a rather small section of their hair that looked like it had already been pre-combed out. After spraying this stuff on, the hairdresser showed how "you can even comb your fingers through it" as if it's harder to get fingers through tangled hair than a comb (darn right they weren't going to try putting a comb through it until they worked out the tangles with their fingers first). Of course, when they did the comparison of a section of hair they didn't spray, they just jammed the comb in without detangling with fingers first (that looked painful to the model...I could sympathize on that one). Once they showed that tiny bit of hair being detangled, they then cut away to the "after" shot of the hair looking all beautiful and smooth. Of course, for all we know, it was the "before" shot pre-teasing.

Oh, there's some other infomercial on at night that is this little food blender thing (looks like one of those hand-held coffee grinders but with detachable cups). There are two things that strike me as funny. First, they are trying to show how fast it is by counting...you have chopped onions in one...two...three...four...seconds, except they are counting VERY slowly, and don't bother pointing out somebody already peeled the onions and they are teeny tiny onions (I don't think a normal sized onion would even fit in the cup). The other thing that's hysterical is that one of the "audience" who is supposed to look like they are just sitting around someone's kitchen counter is wearing a housecoat (you know, the kind grandma's wear...pink with flowers) and has an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth, and makes you think of a character you might run into in Flo's Diner. Don't you think they could have at least made her look like she bothered to get dressed before putting her on TV? :rofl:

 

[Overdose]

Can i have some more info on that psoriasis shot? doesn't sound too hopeful but I am interested in any new breakthroughs seeing as I am one of those 'flaky' people : p

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Can i have some more info on that psoriasis shot? doesn't sound too hopeful but I am interested in any new breakthroughs seeing as I am one of those 'flaky' people : p

More severe psoriasis may require medicines to suppress your body's immune response. Examples of such medicines are methotrexate and cyclosporin. Another example is a medicine called Amevive (alefacept). It prevents your immune system from overreacting and so helps stop the buildup of extra skin cells. It is given as a shot once a week for 12 weeks. You will need some monitoring with blood tests while you are having these shots.

http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/aha/aha_psoriasi_crs.htm

 

[Chronos]

Very weird, moonbear, I am having a cookie moment.

 

[Moonbear]

I had to resurrect this thread. I heard a commercial for a new sleep aid pill (the name is eluding me at the moment :grumpy:). Anyway, you know how those commercials always list all the side effects...as they're going through the list, it included "drowsiness." :rofl: Is that really a side effect for a sleep aid? What moron did they wind up with in that clinical study who reported that as a side effect? :rofl: :rofl:

 

[Pengwuino]

Anyone see those stupid zantrac 3 commercials or whatever. What a loony commercial.

EVERYONE LOVES ZANTAC 3! ZANTAC 3, YES

Followed by a huge "YES" flying onto the screen.

 

[LarrrSDonald]

While including drowsiness may seem like an effect rather then a side effect, when studied in sleeping pills it usually refers to drowsiness apart from the intended period. This is obviously a problem with sleeping pills in general, but never the less a side effect.

I recall seeing a commercial for detergent, I believe it was Tide, once (this must have been a good year or two ago). They showed a split screen, some pretty flash on the left (pouring the liquid out of the bottle in closeup, flowers, grass, that sort of thing) and the right half split vertically into Before and After examples. Both were animated, the Before slightly more stained then the After. Then, both stains faded (yes, the Before as well) until the Before was only slightly stained (as if washed, but kind of improperly - the sort of thing that would normally be labled "other leading detergent" or something) and the After completely clean. I was totally flabberghasted, trying to stutter out an explanation of what just went down to my wife. She hadn't noticed and didn't seem to feel it was especially odd, even after it seemed like she understood why I thought this was unusual. I never caught it again and never heard anything about it. I'm still sort of wondering if this is some kind of self-irony or prank, surely no one could make such a devestatingly bad demonstration by accident?

 

[Moonbear]

While including drowsiness may seem like an effect rather then a side effect, when studied in sleeping pills it usually refers to drowsiness apart from the intended period. This is obviously a problem with sleeping pills in general, but never the less a side effect.

That could be the case, but don't you think they'd list it as something like "drowsiness during the day" or "prolonged drowsiness" or just something to indicate it was something outside of the normal drowsiness that's supposed to help you sleep? All they said was "drowsiness" amidst the list of other side effects.

I recall seeing a commercial for detergent, I believe it was Tide, once (this must have been a good year or two ago). They showed a split screen, some pretty flash on the left (pouring the liquid out of the bottle in closeup, flowers, grass, that sort of thing) and the right half split vertically into Before and After examples. Both were animated, the Before slightly more stained then the After. Then, both stains faded (yes, the Before as well) until the Before was only slightly stained (as if washed, but kind of improperly - the sort of thing that would normally be labled "other leading detergent" or something) and the After completely clean. I was totally flabberghasted, trying to stutter out an explanation of what just went down to my wife. She hadn't noticed and didn't seem to feel it was especially odd, even after it seemed like she understood why I thought this was unusual. I never caught it again and never heard anything about it. I'm still sort of wondering if this is some kind of self-irony or prank, surely no one could make such a devestatingly bad demonstration by accident?

:rofl: That's like those various ads you see in magazines for stuff like wrinkle creams where they show the before and after shot, and it's actually the identical photo, but just brightened with a bit less contrast in the after shot (the entire background is altered, not just the person).

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I noticed that on the latest Depends commercial, the key sales features are the color and shape of the box, and that the new box is easy to find in the store. :rofl: Paraphrasing: So for all of you old folks who easily get lost, even you can find the Depends? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: I imagine that they learned that people can't find their product on the store shelves, but that is one strange message!

 

[LarrrSDonald]

Quite a few meds that do make you drowsy as a primary effect do list drowsiness as "daytime drowsiness". Then again, that's a little backwards too, since there's no guarantee that it is actually "daytime", a shiftworker who takes it to sleep during the day could experience unwanted drowsiness during the night. With some bad luck, someone might take advantage of the current legal assumptions that it's perfectly ok to be a total moron and say "but.. but.. it wasn't my fault I fell asleep and shredded my arm in the lathe, it was *nighttime* and nobody warned me at all about that". "Prolonged" could be similarly misconstured with a little good will. "Drowsiness during the part of your sleep cycle when you would otherwise resonably expect to not to be" doesn't roll off the tounge. It could be that they simply felt that "drowsiness" pretty much covers all the bases, hard to say there's any ambigiouity there. It still sounds a bit silly, but I suppose that's life sometimes.

I've thought it a bit interesting how some natural products (Those wierdo propriety herbals that are supposed to make your [edit by Ivan: word replaced with "male parts" :grumpy:] bigger, your hair longer, your wife hornier, etc) have sometimes taken to the same format, rattling off a spew of outside possibillities for side effects at the end. It's really pretty clever, even when knowing full well what they are, you kind of do a double take like "Huh? That stuff's prescription?".

[EDIT by SDonald, My apologies for using an inappopriate anatomical term, by mistaken instinct I considered it not inappropriate enough to avoid. I shall avoid it and any similarly offensive language in the future.]

 

[matthyaouw]

One advert that's really beenn bugging me lately is the Heinekin beer ad. It boasts that their beer is not brewed in upright tanks like most, but sideways! Alright, so its sideways, but if they can give me one reason why that makes their beer better than another, I'll be extremely impressed.

 

[LarrrSDonald]

Another one where I might just play devils advocate :-). Shapes of fermenting vats as well as storage containers does have at least a minor effect on the brew, slanted or rounded vats tend to make sediments collect more rapidly then flat bottoms as well as other effects on chemical processes (a fact many chemical manufacturers take advantage of, there was, if I recall correctly, a patent dispute at one point on if slanted chemical vats were a patentable invention or if anyone could use it). I have no earthly idea if this would make the beer better or worse, but it should probably have at least some effect. Most modern beers (mid 18th century and forward) are "bottom fermented" i.e. the temperture is kept at a level where yeast primarily sinks rather then floats (the early "top fermentation" in open vats, producing primarily ales) so it's not terribly unreasonable to assume that the degree of settling at the bottom of the vat is of some importance.

It's obviously not much of an argument (as you correctly point out), a round bottom (or any other shape per research) vat may well be equal or supperior and it's highly likely that the importance is overhyped, though in brewing circles it does seem accepted that it's by no means without importance. Also, it's hard to really say that a beer is "better" in any case, though I think the beers here in america would most appropriatly be described by exclamatives I wouldn't dream of uttering here, plenty of people seem to greatly prefer them to Heiniken, Carlsberg, Guinness, Kilkenny or any of my other preferences.

[EDIT] Typo

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"I'm Tony Sinclair. Ready to Tanqueray?"

Who is that guy? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

 

[Pengwuino]

Ive never heard of that Ivan...

*makes a chicken in his Ronco Showtime Rotisserie*

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ive never heard of that Ivan...

It's a commercial that has been running for some time now around here.

*claps on the light as it gets dark outside*

Edit: **passes out from pain due to clapping with injured finger**

 

[selfAdjoint]

I noticed that on the latest Depends commercial, the key sales features are the color and shape of the box, and that the new box is easy to find in the store. :rofl: Paraphrasing: So for all of you old folks who easily get lost, even you can find the Depends? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: I imagine that they learned that people can't find their product on the store shelves, but that is one strange message!

No this is product positioning. They want to train you to look for that color and shape so you will automatically reach for it in a shelf full of competitor's other colors and shapes. The more times you see the commercial the more trained you will become (they hope).

 

[inha]

one thing that pisses me off is hair care products. 50% shinier hair! 75% less split ends! really? did they really measure those quantities?

 

[matthyaouw]

Another one where I might just play devils advocate :-). Shapes of fermenting vats as well as storage containers does have at least a minor effect on the brew,

I just wish they'd at least hint at this in the advert! They seem to be trying to imply sideways = good, no reason given.


There's a new skin cream that's just come out, which reverses wrinkling with a combination of "eastern plant extracts and science". They presumably just use powerdered science and stir it in...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

No this is product positioning. They want to train you to look for that color and shape so you will automatically reach for it in a shelf full of competitor's other colors and shapes. The more times you see the commercial the more trained you will become (they hope).

Okay, that makes sense. The line "and it's easy to find" kept ringing in my head. That just didn't make sense to me as a hook. I was starting to wonder if this might even be a bit insulting to some people.

 

[motai]

One commercial that really gets on my nerves:

"Why did your last diet fail? Stress raises cortisol. Cortisol raises belly fat. Relacore reduces cortisol. You need relacore. (male voice) Call now, it's guaranteed!"

Then it repeats itself right afterwards! :grumpy:

"Stress raises cortisol. Cortisol raises belly fat. Relacore reduces cortisol. You need relacore. (male voice) Call now, it's guaranteed!"

What I don't understand is that cortisol has a purpose within the human body, and while I don't know too much about human anatomy, I do know that certain hormones are in the body for a reason, and eliminating them could have adverse effects on other parts of the body.

It (cortisol) acts as a physiological antagonist to insulin by promoting breakdown of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins and so mobilizing energy reserves. In addition, immune and inflammatory cells have their responses to stress attenuated by cortisol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol

I also saw another ad that was more annoying, repeating itself 3 times very fast, but I don't remember what it was about.

 

[Burnsys]

one thing that pisses me off is hair care products. 50% shinier hair! 75% less split ends! really? did they really measure those quantities?

I also remember reduce fat fast , in the comercial they say: 100% more efective and 200% quicker...

100% more efective compared to what?? they never tell you...

 

[matthyaouw]

One from a quick action headache tablet

"Some may find that it could get to work upto twice as fast as regular paracetamol."

I.e.- For a few people, this maybe might possibly work a little faster than the cheap control product they used, with a bit of luck.

 

[LarrrSDonald]

I've always found the new Ephedra-free Stacker 2 rather strange. Previously, it was a version of the oldschool aspirin/caffeine/ephedrine stack, only with willow bark (salicylic acid, works similarly to acetyl-sa. Well, except harder on your stomach. And perhaps not as effective), guarana (caffeine containing) and ma hung (ephedrine containing). So almost as good as aspirin/caffeine/ephedrine but much more expensive. However, since it's a supplement it can be marketed - the synthetic equivs are not approved for these uses and can only be sold OTC for other reasons (while judging if you are actually congested/bronchial enough to need ephedrine is your call, but they can't actually plainly offer it to you as a stimulant/apetite suppressant/etc).

While that's pretty deep in the BS already, it makes a certain kind of ackward sense, I suppose. Now that ephedra (herbal sources of ephedrine) can't be sold, however, they now brag about the lack of it, "Now in ephedra free!". Of course, the marginal effects it did have mostly left with the danger of taking it. In my book, yelling out "Now without Ephedra" is surfing very close to "Now without active ingredients".

 

[Moonbear]

Okay, this is the third time I've seen this same infomercial show up on TV here. It's this wacko, Kevin Trudeau, pushing his book,"Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You To Know About," along with his conspiracy theories about the pharmaceutical companies witholding cures, and claiming there are natural cures for all sorts of diseases.
He's claiming there are natural cures for arthritis, atherosclerosis, herpes, a dozen natural cures for cancer, and many more.

The guy is even flaunting that he's been sued by the Federal Trade Commission, as if it's proof that they're trying to suppress information on all these cures he is going to tell you about!

Wow, a true crackpot in action!

 

[Pengwuino]

Ugh, my mom bought that book :-/. You stay up enough nights because there's nothing else on and you'll see that commercial a million times.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Not debunking here, but has anyone seen the Fruit of the Loom guys singing? That commercial cracks me up - "I see a lot of apple". :rofl: I would love to write for commercials.

There is one running on the Sci-Fi channel that would seem to indicate an end of the "no beef" era. The lyrics are: "Eat steak eat steak, eat a big ole steer, eat steak eat steak, come'n get it here. Eat steak eat steak, eat a big ole steer, eat steak eat steak, come'n get it here". I can just imagine the vegetarians and vegans watching, all now heaving in their bathrooms...

But one that gets me is the Brady Bunch style commercial for sour cream. I forget the brand... but they show potatoes and all sorts of other foods loaded with sour cream, all while singing this cutesie little tune. The staging and melody connote wholesomeness, tradition, family, and a beautiful spring day. The contrast between the commercial and the reality of heart patients in the ER is what strikes me the most.

edit: how could I forget? Daisy brand sour cream
http://www.daisybrand.com/

"Pure and Natural" too! Doesn't that look healthy?