At times it may seem like I get exercised over the most picayune matters. The ad you see here being a perfect example. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for comparison ads. Even if they’re of the invidious variety. But when an ad plunges headlong into factual misrepresentation, it’s time for someone to throw something–a flag, a fit, anything but a stone, I guess.
Because what we have here is some pretty specious arithmetic. How, pray tell, can a bottle full of beer be 100% beer while a bottle full of water is only 5% water? Ah, I see, because the bottle of water is 95% hype whereas the beer is 0% hype. But hang on, isn’t all advertising 100% hype? Of course it is, and since the sponsor of this ad is the beer, how on Earth can it claim it contains 0% hype?
It can’t. Yet I probably would have left it alone were it not for two other things: 1) the ad then proceeds to have the unmitigated gall to call itself “good, honest beer”, and 2) it’s a fairly eye-catching piece of work and thus liable to send a clear signal to marketers too young to know better that this sort of prevarication is totally according to Hoyle.
It’s not. It’s insulting to the intelligence of the audience. (Granted, potential Miller High Life consumers may need a pencil and paper to tackle any percentage calculations more involved than “50% off!”, that’s beside the point.) It also elevates the risk that the word “honest” will resonate someday with the same force as the word “quality” does today when we encounter it in expressions such as “purveyors of quality products since 1879″.
This industry has done enough to debase the language and insult the intelligence of consumers. And comparison advertising can be done quite compellingly without resorting to either. Just look at some of the early work of Carl Ally’s agency to see what I mean. However, as with everything you read here, that’s just my honest (and anything but humble) opinion.
Mark, your vocabulary is 100% hype.
I know your mother would be proud of all your $5 words- but this post is pretentious. I guess you’ve been drinking that overpriced water.
Do you really believe that all advertising is hype?
I have no problem with your vocabulary, Mark. No problem because I read your blog, complete with its “$5 words,” if that’s what they are, by choice.
By choice, I also read The New Yorker every week when my copy arrives, even though its articles are filled with $5, $10, $20, even $100 words, all of the words, for the most part, embedded in long, compound-complex, deliciously crafted sentences.
About the ad in question… well, using a word anyone can understand, it sucks. The more times I look at it - at least four or five so far - the more I wonder what its creators were thinking. If anything.