Commercials and products

Ivan Seeking

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

Who is that guy?

Pengwuino

Ive never heard of that Ivan....

*makes a chicken in his Ronco Showtime Rotisserie*

Ivan Seeking

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

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

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

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!

"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.

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

I also saw another ad that was more annoying, repeating itself 3 times very fast, but I dont remember what it was about.

Burnsys

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 theres 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". 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?