My get kinda pissed at the Blu Emu radio spot.
Here is a paraphrase of the part the pisses me off.
“contians 7% emu oil… used for thousands of years. So, it is fast acting…” WTF where does effectiveness come directly from how long it has been used as a remedy?
It irks me a great deal.
And how can they call it “fast acting,” when you have to use it for thousands of years?
What, are they using the term “fast acting” in a geological sense?
I think that would fall under the realm of “puffing”, which is legal. IOW, if they say “Your home for the best in classic rock!”, you can’t claim false advertising if they aren’t. Or look at it this way–would a reasonable person believe that one radio station has secured exclusive rights to play that song?
I’d also like to add this bit from the Simpsons episode with Spinal Tap:
“Hey guys, how about recording some promos for us? Would you say, 'Nobody rocks like Sid and Marty on KBBL?”
“Well, we don’t know that, do we? What if somebody does?”
“Or better?”
“Yeah. We don’t want to look stupid.”
Scold the radio?
Yes, you belong in a mental institution.
You’re probably not a menace to society, but a few years in the puzzle factory may help.
Scold the radio?
Stop, you’re killing me.
A DJ on KFAN (Minneapolis, although syndicated all over Minnesota) mentioned in passing one day that Body Solutions went broke. I don’t know anything about a lawsuit, although I would not be surprised. I found their promos hilarious, because the on air announcers were always talking about how much weight they’d gained since they’d stopped taking Body Solutions last time and how they were going to lose it all back. I also got really po’d when they’d say they hadn’t changed their diet, and then mention how they weren’t eating four hours before bedtime.
And yes, I talk back to my radio all the time.
-Myron
Years ago, I had a friend who was going to Temple law school in Phila, and he worked for me on weekends and during semester breaks in my construction company.
I asked him how those claims could be made-statements that the average person would question once their “bullshit” alarm went off.
He explained the courts have held that a certain amount of exaggeration is acceptable when advertising is involved. So they can lie to us, right? No. It’s not lying, per se, it’s advertising. So advertising is synonymous with lying? No. It’s embellishment for the purpose of promoting a product. So every car dealer around can promise that they are selling you cars for .25 over invoice, and even though it’s crap, it’s legal? OK I understand. I’m going to pay you $1000 if you get that siding job finished today. Really? No. I’m advertising. Various profanity followed.
BTW, I talk to my radio often, particularly when it’s NPR pledge time and they won’t shut the F up and play music. My favorite is still the late night infomercials about the psychic hotline. If you’re a psychic, then why don’t you know my name, why I called, and already have my Mastercard number? :rolleyes:
I have dispatched an e-mail to WROV to ask them which of the songs in their WROV archives cannot be obtained elsewhere, and if they are trying to imply in their commercial that “Stairway to Heaven” is among them. My tone in the letter was not confrontational, but one of genuine puzzlement.
If I get a response, I will share it with the group.
Dr. J
I don’t listen to the radio; I get all my information from my computer. But I do scold it – not only for the blatantly false advertisements it throws at me, but for failing to acknowledge the presence of various forms of media. Once I was forced to strike it after it refused to believe that it had a CD in it, even after I had ejected it and held it up in front of the monitor (that’s where they see from), claiming: “see, it’s a disk.”
When will they learn?
As mentioned earlier in the thread, I don’t see how radio ads are any more or less truthful then commercials on the television or pop-ups or other forms of media.
As a pro disc jockey myself I can tell you that occasionally jocks are asked if they will do spokesperson gigs on the air. This can be a good source of supplemental income, but it is really up to the person as to whether they wish to go on the air and sing the praises of a certain product. (This is everything from Body Solutions, to fast food, to creme to cure cellulite and more.) Personally I have only ever chosen to take endorsements from products I actually believe in . . . but I have known others who have shilled for items they knew did not work. Is this morally wrong ? I suppose. Is it illegal ? Nope. They are expressing an opinion - like your nextdoor neighbor might. You can choose to believe the voice on the radio or not. I’d take it with a grain of salt.
Radio, perhaps more than any other form of media, is often “smoke and mirrors” - which is a slightly simplistic answer for the WROV situation discussed above as well.
Maybe I will start that “Ask the radio jock” thread after all.
I have regular conversations with Dr. Laura, Rush, and various other AM talk show hosts. Sometimes I even shout, curse, and give them the finger. Other times I cheer them on. The radio can be sooo entertaining when we make it interactive.
That’s hilarious!
Please do, I have questions.
They don’t talk back, do they? :eek:
That’s hilarious!
Please do, I have questions.
They don’t talk back, do they? :eek:
When I’m at home I give a lot of commercials (both radio and TV) the MST3K treatment. There are just soooo many stupid ads out there that are ripe for shredding.
My most-loathed radio commercials are the ones done by a local (Chicago) plastic surgeon. He has the most annoying, cloying, sanctimonious accent, and has the most outrageous claims in his commercials. And the disgust is readily apparent in his voice when he lists all of the body parts that can be “fixed” by his “body sculputre” :rolleyes: technique, AKA liposuction.
My (least) favorite has him saying that the reason plastic surgery is the only real way to lose weight is that “fat and muscle don’t communicate with eachother” and thus exercise is pointless. 
Listen up, Sparky, fat and muscle “communicating” isn’t how exercise works. Even I know that, and I was a theatre major. I always wonder who falls for this line of total bullshit.
Another commercial for this “doctor” starts off with a man talking about his wife’s recent liposuction job. He begins with the classic phrase “a woman can never be too rich or too thin.” :rolleyes: If I was dating or married to a guy who used that phrase in my presence, he’d be the recipient of some amateur surgery. Or I’d just kick him to the curb.
Wow. All that ire for a series of insipid radio commercials. I really need to get out more…without wearing my walkman! :o
Engel
I hate commercials that are done by DJs.
The commercials where they ‘appear’ to be talking to each other when really it’s a commercial.
DJ: and so I went to that pary on friday, but I d=couldn’t fit into my pants! I had to buy new ones!
DJ sidekick: well, you know, that happened to me, too. the I discovered Body solutions!
DJ: tell me more!
I hate how the DJs endorse it because it tends to give an air of credibility to the product.
DJs go on and on about how they love their listeners and then go on to sell them outright crap. How do they sleep at night?
Right now the ones in heavy rotation are for LASIK. Ugh. If I hear one more Dr Boothe (with an e!) commercial, my head will explode.
One of the DJs on the station that I listen to has been hyping LASIK as well! At least he’s funny about it; he starts off “If you’re like me, you hate losing your glasses, or having to remove your contacts after tipping back a few.”
I occasionally badmouth the miracle vitamin purveyors and their captive shills on those weekend radio infomercials.
It’ll range from a few pointed remarks when they start babbling about how only their special microencapsulated 100% pure time-released nickel-plated vitamin C can cure any condition known to man…to full-blown ridicule during those “colon cleanse” segments when they start with the John Wayne autopsy legend. “And did you known that there were 742 pounds of fecal material clogging John Wayne’s intestines when he died???!?!?”
No, but I have a pretty good idea who’s full of shit.
Exactly. In fact, as an experiment, I decided to do what I called the No Body Solutions Diet. I simply didn’t eat anything after nine o’clock. If I got hungry, I drank water. It was kind of tough at first, but got easier and easier. Without changing anything else, I lost 15 lbs in two months.
Unfortunately, I have not yet worked out a way to charge people for my diet breakthrough.
If I heard that in my car I’d have to pull over from laughing so hard! He may have tapped into a new market segment though.
“Well, Doc, I hadn’t planned on getting LASIK but now I realise how much my contacts are interfering with my drinking!”
Re: The DJ’s themselves shilling stuff. The weirdest one I can think of is when Howard Stern was doing ad spots for one of those handmade teddy bear companies. Yeah, I picture Howard as a big teddybear fan.
(Wasn’t there an episode of WKRP where Johnny Fever decided not to endorse some product and it turned out to be really lousy and everyone learned a VERY IMPORTANT LESSON™?)
Simple, my dear, simple. Whip up some kind of phoney-baloney pill with instructions to take it at 9:00 PM every night with a glass of water. Include a warning that eating after taking the pill may affect the pill’s effectiveness, but the consumer may drink more water if desired. Charge $150 per bottle of 50 pills with the tagline, “It costs so much because it really works!” and voila! You’ll be rolling in the dough (until the FTC, FDA, FCC, or someone else shuts you down… try to blow the country before that happens, 'k?).
Seriously, though, has anyone seen the ad on TV for the magnetic thingamajigger that’s supposed to get rid of pain? These magnets really work because they’ve been ionized. And it must work, because the lady who’s had elbow pain for three months said her elbow felt better! So for several payments of only $50 each, you too can be pain free! That ad totally made me want to retch :mad:
[sub](Please don’t be too hard on the ISR. My husband had a star named after me for our first post-wedding Valentine’s day, back in those innocent days before we discovered Cecil Adams or the SDMB. I still think it was a sweet thing to do, and the ISR claims it donates the money to charity “in Australia and around the world”. I just hate thinking my poor sweet hubby got taken in :()[/sub]
If I might travel back to TV for a moment…thanks! I have two words for y’all “Trio Uncensored.” There you are, checking out the naked David with the fig leaf on it, listening to all the great smutty things they’re going to bring on next and then poof! The show comes on with all the dirty words, including “dick” fergossakes (in a show about men and their relationships with their penises, no less) bleeped out, and any naughty bits pixilated to a fare thee well, sometimes to the point where it is absolutely impossible to figure out what the original picture might be.
Uncensored, my fat red stripy baboon ass! Grrr. It wouldn’t be so annoying if the shows were lame and sucky, but they’re actually pretty damned good and I’m not getting to see or hear them. There oughta be a law…