Thursday, December 27, 2012

Studies show people like studies

Man: "My doctor told me to take Centrum Silver a few years ago.  Now, I hear that there's been a study on the effects of vitamins.  The vitamin they used?  Centrum Silver.  Guess my doctor is pretty smart!"  Tagline: "Most studied."  The ad campaign is, I think, a work of diabolical genius: of course having been studied doesn’t mean the results of the studies were good!  But as other studies have shown, advertising an irrelevant attribute can increase consumers’ favorability towards a product even when it’s explicit that the attribute is irrelevant.  And I don’t think this actually allows an escape from regulation: the clear implication—the necessary implication, if you will—of this claim in an ad is that the studies produced favorable results for Centrum Silver.  H/T ST.

1 comment:

Bruce Boyden said...

Vaguely reminds me of the old Eddie Albert commercial: "Ecotrin. It's strong. It's orange!" I couldn't find that version on YouTube, only the post-FTC enforcement ones.