Some of my favorite meaningless advertising phrases

[Nelek]

Like: Floor washing product with 100% natural lemon. but Lemon drink with 5% natural lemon. ? :rolleyes:

M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.

[dandy72]

When the salesguy tries to persuade you this is the same type of mattress NASA uses for its astronauts. OK, but I'm never going to bring this mattress in a zero-G environment. How is this bullet-point of any value to me?

[theoldfool]

Premium Deluxe Luxury

>64 Some days the dragon wins. Suck it up.

[Paul Kemner]

This is actually a thing-- You pick the fruit before it's ripe, and expose it to ethylene gas to ripen it. You can do this yourself by putting unripe apples in a paper bag with a ripe banana, apple, or other fruit. The ripe apple gives off ethylene that hastens the ripening of the other apples. It's also the reason why one bad apple can spoil a barrel of them. :)

[Kelly Herald]

New and Improved! It may be new but it doesn't mean that it's improved. <cough>New Coke</cough>

Kelly Herald Software Developer

[Paul Kemner]

"It's Homeopathic!" - meaning that through a series of dilutions, there may not be a single atom of the active ingredient in what you buy. Homeopathic dilutions - Wikipedia[^] Similarly, wood finishing products that claim to be Tung Oil can get by without having any actual tung oil in them.

[jsc42]

Or "New, improved, original recipe" If it is the original recipe then it is unchanged so is not ne or improved. Salt and Vinegar Crisps: No Preservatives (sorry - what do they think salt or vinegar is?)

[trønderen]

Publicly announced shrinkflation: Smaller pack - same great taste! In my opinion, for quite a lot of cheese, 'Best before' should be replaced with 'Best after' (without changing the date).

[trønderen]

As shown on TV (I never owned a TV set. And if I did: So what?)

[Choroid]

The BIG lie This item is in 10 peoples cart ONLY 3 remain available REVISIT the link 1 hour latter same message with the same stats

[englebart]

And the other 95% is NOT water and sugar.

[Jeremy Falcon]

For a limited time only...

Jeremy Falcon

[trønderen]

In Norway, we see a marked price rise six weeks before Black Friday. If you claim some "Before" price, "Now only xxx", that "Before" price must have been effective for at least six weeks. So for Black Friday, they can claim a significant discount, down to the ordinary, year-around prices.

[trønderen]

Surimi, the taste-like-crab fish product, was for many years sold in Norway as 'crab sticks' - the English term. After it became popular, some manufacturers started selling then as 'krabbepinner' - 'krabbe' = 'crab', 'pinner' = 'sticks'. They were fined, because the product contains zero percent crab, and they had to stop marketing it as 'krabbepinner'. So they market it as 'crab sticks' - that is accepted. Note that approx. 99.9% of all Norwegians from 12 years up understand English quite well. (The percentage knowing what 'surimi' is, is far lower :-))

[trønderen]

Nelek wrote:

Lemon drink with 5% natural lemon.

Our local brewery (for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks) were forbidden to market their lemon soda as 'Real lemon soda'. They objected: Sure, you can't claim that is is a 'lemon drink' unless it contains at least 5% lemon. Their 'Lemmy' soda contained 8% lemon! After three quarters of a year, the court decided to let them sell their 'Lemmy' again, provided they market it as 'Lemon soda' - not as 'Real lemon soda' ...

[trønderen]

A friend of mine describe his home made product as '4% water'. He doesn't advertise it in media, though.

[trønderen]

Whenever I see 'up to', as in 'up to 40% better than the competition', my instinctive reaction is: 'So you have search the market for the very worst product you could find, and you are no more than 40% better than that?'

[trønderen]

Unit price: 4.50 Buy two for only 10.00! One of the big chain stores in Norway was recently caught in several cases of this kind of advertising. When confronted by journalists, the store owners insisted that the cash register would charge only 9.00 for two. I am not at all trusting that it was the case the day before the journalists turned up :-)

[CodeWraith]

Don't say anything about the Crap[^]. It rarely lets you down, but my favorite is the Crap 27SL. :-)

I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats. His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.

[trønderen]

For several decades, Pepsodent toothpaste was marketed (at least in Norway) as "With irium". In my childhood, I used a different toothpaste (with fluoride), but I remember friends arguing in favor of Pepsodent, as it was with irium. When 'truth in marketing' became stronger, the manufacturers of Pepsodent were pressed on this 'irium'. They had to admit that it was their name for water. The marketing trick was that they had never claimed that Pepsodent was the only toothpaste with 'irium', and they had never claimed that 'irium' had any particular properties - only that Pepsodent contained 'irium'. Contained water. That was an indisputable truth. In the HiFi world you see a huge amount of terms, usually as three- or four-letter abbreviations, used to prove the quality of the product. I have actually been thrown out of a stereo shop because I laughed right into the face of a salesman: That is bullshit - show me what connections that amplifier has! That's what I care about. He refused to: If you deny that this and this and this is essential to the sound quality, then I have no amplifier to sell you! ... I left the store with a big laugh.