# Words I never want to hear in a commercial again **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 5, 2010, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642 "2010-07-05T22:27:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/101 "2010-07-08T04:40:28Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > “We won’t be undersold” - if you bring us in an add that looks somewhat legit, we’ll be happy to beat the price by a few bucks, if only to stop the whining. But it won’t be a problem: we’ve probably got the same model, purchased at about the same wholesale price, maybe a few bucks less. Regardless, this one time we’ll bravely risk the chance that we’re making a few bucks less profit. IIRC, it’s worse than that. Let’s say you and I are set to be competitors: if you notice that I’m offering my stuff at a price you can beat, you should have every reason to drum up some business by offering your stuff at a lower price, right? And then I should have every reason to do likewise, and you should then do likewise, and so on, and so on – each of us consecutively shooting for a smaller and smaller profit with increasingly desperate advertisements. I’d of course rather call you up and offer to collude in some kind of price-fixing scheme, but that’s, like, illegal, or something. And so I don’t call you up; I simply advertise that we Won’t Be Undersold, trumpeting my willingness to Honor Coupons From The Competition in between playing up some kind of If You Find A Lower Price promise – and just like that we’re on the same team anyway: there’s no longer much reason to drop your price two or ten or twenty dollars under mine, because my price will _ **automatically** _ drop to match yours for no benefit either way; I’ve already _ **advertised** _ Price X, where “X” is whatever price you advertise, so, y’know, advertise whatever price you like best. ---
**Author:** ![multimediac17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/102 "2010-07-08T04:45:03Z")
A few years back one of the major record companies (Sony?) started putting a generic silver sticker on many of their new CD releases that said “special edition”. It was probably the world’s lamest attempt to get people to buy more CDs, but the thing was that there was often absolutely nothing special about the releases. Usually “special edition” means different packaging, bonus tracks, a DVD, _something_ other than the basic standard tracklisting in a regular CD case. I’m always well aware of the different editions of new albums I want to buy before I buy them so it’s not like I got duped into thinking I was getting more than I actually was, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t flat-out lying. I will be very glad if the “special edition with nothing special about it” trend never comes back. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/103 "2010-07-08T05:34:23Z")
> [@Staver808](#): > > \ > I think it’s Trilipix that says you must take it with a statin or tanin or some other medication to reduce your cholesterol, but that the product isn’t proven to reduce your chelesterol more than just taking the original product alone. o\_O So, I take your medicine, with medicine proven to work, and your product may help me, but at the least will work as well as if I had just taken the other medicine alone, but I get the privledge of paying you.\ This disclaimer is almost always on weight loss products - “May result in weight loss in conjunction with a diet and exercise program.” No shit. How about I just skip your powder and try diet and exercise? I notice that every single weight loss product ad has a disclaimer of, “Results not typical” after showing a bunch of people who have lost 100 pounds in 3 months. Mm hmm. > [@Miller](#): > > Just today, I saw an add for Peet’s Coffee that claimed it was, “unlike any coffee you’ve ever tasted.” > > Yeah, well, so’s a cup of hot bleach. Well, in all fairness, you’ve probably never tried a cup of hot bleach. 🙂 > [@multimediac17](#): > > A few years back one of the major record companies (Sony?) started putting a generic silver sticker on many of their new CD releases that said “special edition”. \ I understand that the act of putting a label on a product that says “New and Improved” is enough to make the product indeed new and improved - it has a fancy new label! I guess the same is true for a “Special Edition” - look at that fancy sticker it comes with! As most people with any sense know, this is of course complete horseshit. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/104 "2010-07-08T05:49:58Z")
> [@Staver808](#): > > My big complaint isn’t so much specific verbage or images advertisers use, so much as if your product may cause death by the SAME thing it’s trying to cure? You might have a bad product there. I mean Zoloft, you take it for depression, but need to let your doctor know if you now have suicidal thoughts after taking it? Isn’t that a way of saying this product may possibly work like a placebo, so let us know if you’re not falling for it? Also there’s that asthma medicine that may cause asthma related death. How does this work? Reminds me of Abilify, which has the world’s worst possible side effect as far as I’m concerned. Heart attack, stroke, suicidal thoughts, death by asthma, sleep eating, binge gambling, whatever; those side effects all sound like a walk in the park compared to Abilify’s gold standard: _permanent uncontrollable muscle movements_. I cannot imagine a worse side effect short of massive brain damage. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/105 "2010-07-08T14:25:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Is SC Johnson affiliated with Johnson & Johnson? > No. While we share a similar name, we are two completely different companies. The Johnsons of SC Johnson are not related to the Johnsons of Johnson & Johnson. I’m impressed these guys fit five Johnsons into one sentence. It reminds me of that night I spent in county jail with those exhibitionists. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/106 "2010-07-08T14:31:27Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > “Grilled/cooked to perfection” Thank you for reminding me of this one. I haven’t ever heard an advertisement for a steak where they describe it this way. Seems to me that perfection is awfully easy to attain, seeing as how everyone seems to know how to cook to it. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/107 "2010-07-08T14:36:00Z")
> [@Staver808](#): > > My big complaint isn’t so much specific verbage or images advertisers use, so much as if your product may cause death by the SAME thing it’s trying to cure? You might have a bad product there. I mean Zoloft, you take it for depression, but need to let your doctor know if you now have suicidal thoughts after taking it? Isn’t that a way of saying this product may possibly work like a placebo, so let us know if you’re not falling for it? Not really. A placebo might do nothing but it probably wouldn’t make your symptoms worse, which is what they are talking about in the commercial. You can be depressed without having suicidal thoughts. > [@](#): > > The other thing I question is when they say as a side effect “in certain rare cases or small percent, may cause death.” Well how are you determining rare? Can you please quantify it? To YOU, 33 deaths out of 100 may be acceptably rare, not so much to me. There’s probably a government standard for things like that. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/108 "2010-07-08T14:53:43Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > There’s probably a government standard for things like that. I believe what they do is note down everything that happens to anyone in the trial while they’re on the drug regimen. That’s why there are such weird side effects…one person out of a couple of thousand might have gotten a cold while on the sinus medication. It may have had absolutely nothing to do with the medication, but it’s written down and added to the side effects. Same with the deaths…one person out of all the subjects might have had a congenital weakening of an artery in their brain and it blew during the trials, through no fault of the drug being tested. But that death goes in the report, anyway, just in case. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/109 "2010-07-08T16:16:54Z")
“IT’S MY MONEY, AND I WANT IT NOW!!!” while leaning out a window. It’s a structured settlement. You can get some portion of it now if you sell your ownership of the structured payment to some financial agency. They will front you a large portion in cash (deposit, whatever) and say you are done, and they will then collect the structured payments over time. That may not be a bad deal, but you need to realize the trade off. **The Other Waldo Pepper** > [@](#): > > IIRC, it’s worse than that. It’s worse than that. Some of these big companies get special models that are exclusive to them. It may be something insignificant with the case or some combination of features slightly different than the standard line, whatever. But because the model number is different (5503B instead of 5500), they can say the advertisement or price you are getting from the competitor is not on an equivalent product. Loophole. Then there’s Wal-mart, that will have manufacturers make a slightly different version so the cost to them is less, thus they can give the customer the “rollbacks”. They will have name brand versions that are slightly cheaper (and I mean that pejoratively) than the regular name brand version. ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/110 "2010-07-08T16:43:43Z")
“SIMULATION: DO NOT ATTEMPT” is something that is rarely, if ever, spoken but is in a small font size on a lot of commercials involving stunts of some kind. Another variation is “DRAMATIZATION: DOES NOT DEPICT ACTUAL CAPABILITIES OF \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_” I can understand the reasoning (avoiding liability issues) especially with things that involve especially risky behaviors, but I’ve seen it during a commercial where someone is merely driving a car around at night, no jumps, explosions, or power slides. What, we’re not supposed to attempt driving your car at night? And then there are the Toyota commercials where the Tacoma truck is attacked by the Loch Ness Monster or hit by a meteorite and keeps on truckin’. Really, that was just a dramatization? Thanks for letting me know, now I can sleep better at night. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/111 "2010-07-08T18:13:07Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > I don’t know if it’s true, but my wife thinks that if a drug test is done, and even just one of the participants has some symptom, it has to be included as a possible side effect. I work in medical research, on the end of things where you’re in a hospital/clinic and the doctor has one of these pharma companies’ research studies going on, and asks potentially qualifying patients if they’re interested. I do know that for most of these studies, we need to report anything that happens, which are called “adverse events.” Study subject gets a cold? Report it to the sponsor. Migraine? Report it. Hit by a bus? Report it. To the best of my understanding, problems that happen significantly more often in the study drug group (versus the control/placebo group) then get written up in the literature and the drug info sheet. The weirdest “adverse event” I ever reported was a study subject being murdered. :eek: (The report also noted that it was unrelated to the study, as the ex-wife and her boyfriend-turned-hitman were ‘pre-existing conditions’ not aggravated by the treatment…) ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/112 "2010-07-08T19:01:45Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > (The report also noted that it was unrelated to the study, as the ex-wife and her boyfriend-turned-hitman were ‘pre-existing conditions’ not aggravated by the treatment…) I hope somebody wrote “Cite?” on that statement. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/113 "2010-07-08T19:06:40Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > I hope somebody wrote “Cite?” on that statement. Well OK, the “pre-existing conditions” bit was sarcasm not written up in our report 😉 but you do still have to pick a degree of relatedness, so “unrelated” was chosen, correctly. ---
**Author:** ![MickNickMaggies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@MickNickMaggies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MickNickMaggies)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/114 "2010-07-08T19:20:21Z")
Anything that promises ‘we buy’. Namely ‘any car’ and ‘your gold’. People who have been unemployed in the recent past in the UK will likely know that one. Also, the word ‘wonga’ needs to be stricken from the lexicon forever. ---
**Author:** ![Staver808](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@Staver808](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staver808)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/115 "2010-07-08T19:40:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > There’s probably a government standard for things like that. Yeah, but are you sure? Probably isn’t something that I accept when dealing with the government. I mean they probably have someone to inspect those deep sea oil drilling rigs to prevent leaks right? Oh, oops. Nevermind. 😛 Ferret Herder, since you work in the field, is there some kind of government definition or regulation of the words used in ads? Especially numerically vague words like small or rare? If yes, is there some kind of phrasing the drug companies HAVE to use when they KNOW their product causes death? As oppose to someone in the test group that happens to have died, and although the medical examiner can’t find any link to the drug, to protect themselves, they throw it in the disclaimer? Honestly, it never even occured to me that there might be some kind of government regulation of the phrasing they use in ads. I know they can’t lie outright, but small and rare aren’t quantified so I always thought they could define it as they wished. ---
**Author:** ![Staver808](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@Staver808](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staver808)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/116 "2010-07-08T19:43:24Z")
> [@MickNickMaggies](#): > > Anything that promises ‘we buy’. > > Namely ‘any car’ and ‘your gold’. People who have been unemployed in the recent past in the UK will likely know that one. > > Also, the word ‘wonga’ needs to be stricken from the lexicon forever. Sorry, but what does “wonga” mean? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/117 "2010-07-08T19:57:49Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#): > > …for women aged 23-29 with more than two but less than five children, at least one of which owns a Spongebob Squarepants action figure. Along the same lines, the ads used to go Best movie of the summer!!! A new classic!!! - Joe Shmoe, Lake Woebegon Picayune Advertiser. but with the demise of local movie critics, it is now A Must See!!! Sam Shmendrick, [ipraisemoviesformoney.com](http://ipraisemoviesformoney.com) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/118 "2010-07-08T19:59:53Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > _1-800 Kars for Kids_…where, oh where is the smashie smiley when I need it? That counts as not wanting to hear any word in the commercial. I’d donate my car if they’d agree to use it to run over the first kid and the whatever age it is Johnny Cash imitator who sings the second part. And my wife hates this commercial even more than I do. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/119 "2010-07-08T20:02:04Z")
> [@Staver808](#): > > Yeah, but are you sure? Probably isn’t something that I accept when dealing with the government. I mean they probably have someone to inspect those deep sea oil drilling rigs to prevent leaks right? Oh, oops. Nevermind. 😛 Ferret Herder, since you work in the field, is there some kind of government definition or regulation of the words used in ads? Especially numerically vague words like small or rare? > > If yes, is there some kind of phrasing the drug companies HAVE to use when they KNOW their product causes death? As oppose to someone in the test group that happens to have died, and although the medical examiner can’t find any link to the drug, to protect themselves, they throw it in the disclaimer? > > Honestly, it never even occured to me that there might be some kind of government regulation of the phrasing they use in ads. I know they can’t lie outright, but small and rare aren’t quantified so I always thought they could define it as they wished. Well, I’m not really on the advertising end of things at all and I don’t know the regulations on it (and there are regulations - for instance, if you talk about the good effects of your medication, you have to talk about a whole lot of serious side effects. Viagra is golden because everyone knows what it does, so there’s no need to discuss bad stuff either), but typically the listing of side effects are compared to those that happen in people who are in the study but not taking the drug. If they’re some level of significance worse in the group of people taking the drug, then they can be more confident in saying that the drug might cause X, Y, and Z. Stuff like deaths, permanent impairment, hospitalization, etc., get greater scrutiny. (That reminds me, I have an E-mail I have to answer from my hospital’s Institutional Review Board asking if there’s a followup from the sponsor on a couple deaths that happened years ago, at another location.) Sometimes with a death there isn’t an autopsy because the family doesn’t want one, and that can limit certainty about whether the problem was related or not. If there’s no link at all (person had cancer and was in the study, person died of the same cancer which progressed at the expected rate) then that’s almost certainly not going to be counted. I mentioned “hit by a bus” in my previous post. That’s probably not related to the study. But if you get all kinds of problems with accidents (falling down stairs, was driving and hit a tree) and complaints of loss of depth perception or blurred vision in people taking the drug, then “hit by a bus” may well be related to taking the drug! That’s why they take info on what happens to people even if it’s off the wall, and do data analysis and compare it to other possibly similar problems being reported. Really, there’s a limit as to how much info can be packed into a tiny commercial. If you want the best information, checking something like the Physician’s Desk Reference listing (ask your doctor for a photocopy of the pages for the drug in question) or maybe seeing if the FDA has a report on the drug’s approval on their website. Um, I’m sorry. That was a really disjointed way of saying “there are some regulations but I know little about them, so I don’t really know.” ---
**Author:** ![osme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/df788c/32.png) [@osme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/osme)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642/120 "2010-07-08T20:31:19Z")
Apply directly to the forehead! Apply directly to the forehead! Apply directly to the forehead! And I never want to see that fungus thing crawl under a toenail again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-i-never-want-to-hear-in-a-commercial-again/545642.md?page=7)