Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Zero truth

Perhaps you've seen this commercial. A pretty lady wearing an obviously new black shirt talks about how horrible it is when you wash your darks and they get all faded. Then she propounds the benefits of Woolite Dark Laundry detergent. Ie. If you wash your darks with this product, they will not fade.

To prove it, they show a black shirt washed 20 times in their product and one washed 20 times in the National Leading Detergent. Quelle surprise! The NLD makes the black shirt fade terribly.

What I noticed for the first time today, after seeing this obnoxious commercial innumerable times, is that right below the subtitling "National Leading Detergent" are written in very small text the words "Plus Bleach".

Well ya don't say? A detergent PLUS bleach fades clothes more than another detergent WITHOUT bleach. As Thomas the Train would say, bust my buffers.

Turns out CBC Street Cents compared this "miracle" product to the Cheer Dark Laundry, and Cheer mopped the house. Way to go Street Cents.

Anyways, it seems like a small annoyance but it goes back to my general distaste of the misleading tactics advertisers use to sell their clients products. This distaste is particularly strong for direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisements, given the potential consequences of taking action based on information advertised, but sometimes it seems like caveat emptor isn't quite enough when the other side employs such dirty tactics.

Maybe if we wash them all with the national leading detergent, they'll clean up their act.

Do you have any examples of misleading ads you can't stand?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And to think I almost bought that Woolite stuff! I shall be checking out Cheer Dark. I do hates me some faded black clothes.

-andi

Anonymous said...

Bust my buffers! HA!
I loves me some Thomas lingo.