Ways of the Advertiser

Today the population is accustomed to all the technological advances that make this or that thing better. For this reason, when people see “New” or “Better” stamped on a box they assume it must actually be “better.” In truth it really isn’t. The product may just have changed colors. That is how advertisers trick us into buying their product. They use little “Weasel Words” to encourage us to buy their slightly changed product. There are many of these weasel words that advertisers use on a regular basis. A few for example are new, better, improved, like, help, and this list continues on and on.

A great way to explain “new” is this. If you walked into a store and saw something you use regularly and it has been changed slightly and it said “New and Improved” would you take the time to find out what had changed, or would you just buy it perhaps? For instance, just the other day I noticed a candle lighter. The cover of it showed “New Outdoor Lighter.” I picked it up wondering why is that “Outdoor”? It doesn’t look different. I decided I would go find a regular one of the same brand. When I found one the only difference between the two were the colors. The normal “indoor” was in white or red and the “outdoor” was an olive green. Therefore they just found a clever way to sell more lighters by telling people it’s for outdoor use. Most of us would think that it would be harder to blow out the flame or something. That’s where we are wrong. Really it just has a new “Outdoor” color. According to William Lutz, the most frequently use “weasel word” is “new” (33). In this case I strongly agree. If something such as a candle lighter can be turned green and called new, what can’t be?

Another example of a weasel word is the commonly used word “Help.” In the advertising world “help” only means to aid or assist, and absolutely nothing more, although in our minds we think it means to conquer, stop, eliminate, end, solve, heal, or cure (Lutz 32). This misleading word can be found almost everywhere from aspirin to makeup. Telling you that these medicines will “Help Relive Cold Symptoms” or that a certain brand of makeup “Helps Reduce Wrinkles.” You may see several different boxes of medicine that say “Helps Relive Pain.” You wonder which one relives more pain and which relives pain faster. That’s when you notice that none of them say how much or how fast. That is why advertisers can get away with this misleading ad. They never state an amount