Untruth In Advertising

In looking for a name to call this article, I thought of the word "disinformation", which by itself is indecipherable. Examples are the best way to illustrate these advertising tricks.  Whatever is being sold, whether it is cars, snacks, sunglasses, or kids' vitamins, might start with a line like,  "Next time you take the family out on a road trip...." which assumes many things that may not necessarily be true.  The marketer targets his statistics-proven audience by assuming that they are married, have children, live in the suburbs, and have disposable income.  Often, it is difficult to understand at the beginning of these ads what the item being sold is going to be, but it doesn't matter because the same marketing techniques work for everything.  The "take the family on a drive" slogan leaves out single people, inner city dwellers, bus riders, the unemployed and the poor.  It insinuates that a person is not 'normal' if he doesn't want the latest car, massive television, or display of holiday selfies. This exclusion creates masses of unsatisfied people, who are chasing after a dream that has been created by a company looking for profit.  It is an open secret that advertising works best when it creates its own market.  The billion-dollar perfume industry has prospered by using this concept. The consumer is not being sold the actual bottle of scent, but the image of someone who is a Hugo Boss man or a Chanel wearer.  What chance does an ugly duckling from Cincinnati have?  She buys the perfume and deludes herself with Instagram duck-face filtered photos that she has the glamorous life of a Parisian model.  It all starts with the first lie about who people are and what they want.  Like the claim that we in the West live in democracies that are approved by the majority of the people, the narrative being sold is a lie.  If voting is only done by 60% of the population and those votes are split into parties, governing rights can be claimed by those who have the majority of the voters, but are not the majority of the population.  Democracy ends up being governance by a minority. 

Watching a commercial for Volkswagen, I saw a type of bullying advertising that made my blood boil.  We see a man in front of his house retrieving the morning paper, and as he does so, he sees "your" new Volkswagen in the driveway next door.  The newspaper is already a clue that is meant to undermine the man's credibility.  Having a newspaper delivered to his door every morning is a signal that says 'old school'.  Newspapers are a waste of paper.  An up-to-date man would check the news on his phone.  Clearly, this man is not in sync with the times.   A female voice that is sure of itself, even a little righteous, says, "Your neighbour (meaning the man with the paper) thinks Volkswagens are expensive to maintain."   Next, we see him in his kitchen pouring lumpy milk into his coffee.  We wonder why he would do this, and we are meant to think he is too stupid to tell the difference between good and bad.  The man appears to be single.  Why hasn't his wife checked the milk, as he seems to be inept at doing so?   The false reality of a single, incapable, unshaven man in a slightly messy house is designed to undermine whatever the man's opinion is.  Volkswagen is a progressive company, so they'll accept single men as customers, even though they are clearly flawed.  Maybe he is married, but he is an early riser, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt.  The female sales voice says, "He also thinks the milk is perfectly fine, so maybe don't listen to him." This implies that anyone who thinks a Volkswagen is expensive is a dolt who doesn't care if he poisons himself with sour milk.  It is a type of groupthink that was used by the Nazis to make people believe that if they didn't think like the rest of the group, who had already been brainwashed and conditioned by the state, they were crazy and misguided dissenters.  The Nazis put them in concentration camps, the Russians in insane asylums.  

It is a fact that some cars are more expensive than others.  Nobody would dispute that a Ferrari is costly to buy and maintain.  A Volkswagen is not a Ferrari, but it is not a bottom-of-the-range vehicle.  The company is not denying the car is expensive and lets itself off the hook by having 'your neighbour' as just one stupid person, but it skates close to the edge of semantic hair-splitting, which in this case could be construed as lying. Compared to some cars, Volkswagens are expensive.  They are good cars, but they cost more than many other brands, and rightly so because they are well-made.  But to imply that anyone who thinks a Volkswagen is expensive overall must be ignorant, misguided, or insane is a technique that is as old as propaganda. Unfortunately, there is a world of weak-minded, easy-answer, gullible, and brainwashed consumers out there who will be intimidated by the company's insinuation that they, too, could be sour milk drinkers.  It is impossible and undemocratic to outlaw double-speak since diplomacy is based on it, but the psychological games used in marketing should be taught in grade school. A degree of critical thinking can save a lot of heartbreak and disillusionment later in life, but the companies trying to sell products would prefer that the underpinnings of their seamless lies are not visible.

In a more crass and equally dangerous arena, politicians are often straightforward liars.  They will say things like "Under this leader, the country is on the road to ruin," when the opposite is true. Some people believe what politicians say, since they must be upstanding enough to get elected and sworn into office, but telling the truth is not something politicians promise to do. Either side is capable of the one-note propaganda which tells lies not only by omission but as bald-faced untruths.  Being caught in an outright lie should be grounds for shame and censure, but in the political world, the ability to lie without blinking is considered an asset rather than an impediment.  We have become so used to untruths being told by advertisers and our governments that pundits consider we are living in an age of 'post-truth', which I can only take to mean an age of invented, altered reality.  This disconnect with objective facts has the effect of isolating people in their own magic bubbles where everything they choose to believe is true, while what they choose not to believe is a lie. A society that drifts too far into the distortion of provable facts creates a disunited, bickering population that is easy to control.  That is the objective.