Moneymagpie

Why I hate bad ads

Each week, Cliff D’Arcy tells us what gets him really hot under the collar. Today, it’s the turn of annoying advertisements…

There’s one simple reason why I love and cherish the BBC over any other broadcaster. Auntie Beeb is ad-free, which means no annoying plugs ruining your enjoyment of BBC radio and TV programmes.

When I start to think about just how aggravating ads can be, I practically start foaming at the mouth. What really grinds my gears is the level of falsehood and fabrication used to pull the wool over the public’s eyes…

Beauty and the beasts

Perhaps the worst offenders in the ‘annoying adverts’ category are those flogging beauty produces to women. As with all ads, the devil’s in the detail — and you’ll find the truthful stuff tucked away in micro-print in a corner of the screen.

For example, mascara ads which quietly admit they were “Filmed with lash inserts and enhanced in post-production”. Thus, the reason why that mascara looks so thick and lush is the wearer has inserted a badger into her eyelids and then the whole ad has been ‘Photoshopped’ to enhance the effect. In other words, the whole ad is one big, fat illusion.

Another annoying feature of beauty and make-up ads is the bogus statistics used to justify their claims. For example, “67% of women agree that Eyemuck is our best mascara ever”. The problem is that 67% is two-thirds, so you can get 67% agreement from just two women out of a total of three agreeing with you. That’s hardly a convincing recommendation, agreed?

Getting pasted

Another annoying trend in modern advertising is to introduce bogus ‘experts’. This seems to be a popular choice for makers of toothpaste. When someone offers you advice about toothpaste, the only person you should trust is a dentist (or a spokesperson from the British Dental Association).

However, the Advertising Standards Authority’s rules prohibit the use of dentist’s recommendations for oral-hygiene products. Instead, what you get these days is a ‘dental expert’ who works for the giant pharmaceutical company which makes the toothpaste. This spokesperson has no medical or dental qualifications, but most likely works in the firm’s marketing department. So how trustworthy is their advice as a ‘dental expert’? Exactly!

By the way, Britain’s first-ever television advertisement was for toothpaste (Gibbs SR). Since that day (22 September 1955), advertising has gone steadily downhill in the honesty stakes.

Adverts harm your health and wealth

In his excellent book Affluenza: How to Be Successful and Stay Sane, clinical psychologist Oliver James revealed a link between advertising and mental health. Put simply, the higher the spending on advertising and marketing in a country, the higher the levels of emotional distress and mental illness in its population.

In other words, the constant promotion of conspicuous consumption — plus endless pressure to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ — increase a population’s mental stress. So, bad ads can be harmful to your health as well as your wealth.

One antidote to awful adverts is to switch them off until your programme comes back on. Alternatively, muting the sound works almost as well, as TV ads lose almost all of their pull when their selling messages are switched off. Lastly, by watching only BBC programmes, you can completely avoid ads…

For honest advice written in plain English, try reading my book: The Financial Times Guide to Managing Your Money: How to be better off by making better financial decisions