Sugared water, cardboard fries and hyperbolic lies

Posted by Aaron Bloxsome on 7 February 2010

Tags: overcopywriting, post-exhaustive marketing, commercial propaganda, commercial brainwashing, overmarketing, overadvertising

Exaggeration, inflated promises and economical truths have been used to sell products for decades. However a newer, more arrogant type of verbal hyperbole appears to be emerging. Something I like to call 'overcopywriting' or 'post-exhaustive marketing'.

Two 'culprits' I can identify include one of the fizzy sugared water multinationals and another global organisation fronted by a disturbing clown with a heart of gold who, when not advocating physical exercise and spending time trying to help sick kids, encourages children to eat cardboard with lashings and lashings of salt, sugar and MSG.

I was 'dining' at one of these 'pre-eminent' fast food outlets a few weeks ago. Ok, I'm not proud, but I was hungry and it seemed convenient at the time. Whilst slurping my sugared water and 50% ice, I was greeted with some lovely commercial poetry on the cup about how I'm going to enjoy my cool, refreshing sugared water experience or something to that effect.

It's a soft drink. That's all it is. Nothing more.

And if I'm going to split hairs here, it didn't quench my thirst either. All that aside, I was curious as to why these mutant overmarketers felt the need to try and glorify and further advertise the sugared water 'experience' in this way. I'd handed over my money, 'ker-ching', the sale was made. Why the need to further go on about it? Shouldn't the product speak for itself?

Moving on to the burger, I noticed more rhetoric on the grease saturated cardboard box, about the patty being 100% Australian beef. Ok, I might not have guessed this from the low grade of this particular carnivorous experience. Apparently the burger included cuts of beef I would find in a supermarket. It's comforting to know that I wasn't eating entirely hooves, snouts, intestines, etc.

They didn't specify exactly how much of these types of cuts were included in the patty. Hopefully, proportionally more than the amount of added salt. I could also mention what was written on the box of salt (which had reconstituted fried starch added for good measure), but I think you get the point here.

Fortunately, not every large company over promotes like this, though this type of over advertising seems to be popping up more frequently. Next time you see a choice of fizzy sugared water for sale, you can easily read for yourself which company is the 'over promoter'.

Now I'm not anti-marketing, but this continual bombardment of commercial propaganda by a select few companies is tantamount to brainwashing. At the end of the day, these companies must really believe that this excessive self-congratulatory and somewhat unnecessary celebration of the ordinary gives them a competitive edge.

What it gives to me is the vibe of a pushy second-hand car dealer harping on about how his rusty, rickety bag of bolts is a truly reliable, great drive and a rare find in such good condition.

I think I can decide for myself, thank you.

Well, at least the car dealer's ploy is understandable as he hasn't yet made the sale and probably needs the money. With a few of these commercial giants however, I guess mammoth profits and global market domination just aren't enough for them.

Which leads me to ask, how stupid do they think we are, or how stupid are we?