Advertisers have long – if not always – relied on the gullibility of the consumer. It must work, too, otherwise no companies would bother to pay hundreds of thousands, even millions of pounds on advertising campaigns. I’ve even found myself affected by the power of suggestion, thinking that I might like pizza for tea after an ad for Pizza Hut or something. And, while it’s rare that I will actually make a purchase based on an advertisement, adverts have had a deep effect on my life, and being something of a cultural sponge, I can still recall countless ads from the 80s ver batim, including those for obscure and long-discontinued products (Not so much a simple case of the bounty hunters are here, they’re searching for paradise or wooooooahhhh, Bodyform, as don’t you wish you had a Mitsubishi, or Good ‘n’ Crunchy crisps, anyone?).

Back in the old days, when advertising was unsophisticated and consumer needs were a lot more simple, it was enough to simply show a picture of the product and say what it did, or perhaps how good it was – even if it meant lying. So, for example, slogans (straplines didn’t exist then) such as ‘Bile Beans – keep you healthy, bright-eyed and slim’ did the trick. Other classics include ‘Guinness is good for you!’ ‘Eat Lard’ ‘Craven A: smooth on the throat’ ‘Smoking – good for your health and your image’ etc.

In recent years, advertising standards have taken all the fun out of advertising. It’s no longer permissible to lie or misrepresent a product for starters. To sidestep this sort of legislation, advertisers began to blind target markets with science and statistics. This has reached a new level of absurdity recently: claims regarding popularity are substantiated with survey response figures tucked at the bottom of the screen – even if the surveys were bollocks and represent nothing. ‘80% of women agree that our skin cream is the best skin cream under a fiver they’ve ever used’* *sample of 9 women, July 2009.

It’s no longer acceptable to be sexist or racist in adverts any more, either, unless it’s against men (never mind the man as sex-object cliché, which grew tired before we’d all finished our ‘Diet Coke break,’ I’ve seen several products that are, apparently, so simple that even a man could use them. Oh, that’s so ironic and postmodern!)

The current vogue in advertising is an extension of ‘the science bit,’ with ads pushing to demonstrate scientific innovation, in which advertisers shout about the fact that the product you’re being sold is revolutionary! It runs something like this: ‘We’ve come up with a new formula… it’s so new and different from anything else we’ve had to make up a nonsensical name on it, that’s based on a pseudoscientific corruption of what it’s supposed to do.’ There’s a formula for describing the formula, too: take either a noun or verb that describes what the product is or does, and meld it to an adjective that describes in an appealing or exciting way, how it does this.

I think I first noticed this form of sciadvertising when I switched to Acuvue one a day contact-lenses. I could immediately see more clearly: I suppose you could say that with my sharper vision, my my view was more accurate. Adjectinouns and verbectives are now rife. And why not? They’re perfect for encapsulating the entire essence of a product. Take, for example, a toothpaste that locks in minerals to preserve the enamel. ‘A toothpase that locks in minerals tom preserve the enamel’ is too dry and too long-winded. But the unique ‘enamelock’ formula is something special, not to mention snappy-sounding. There are other toothpastes on the market that also boast great ways of preventing your breath from smelling like shit and shifting unsightly plaque, too.  Aquafresh has rare oxygen-based isotopes in the mix as its active ingredient, and the frothing that shifts the gunk from the gums isn’t just a froth of oxygen bubbles. No, that foam is the toothpaste’s ‘iso-active’ element working.

There are more, many more, great scientific innovations on the market. What about an ‘follow-on’ milk for toddlers with ingredients that boost and fortify the child’s immune system? That would be the immuno-fortis, then. Want a washing gel that contains oxygen that activates in the wash and actively lifts stains? Get the one with Actilift! And if you don’t fancy gel or powder, why not use Liquitabs? Yes, they’re tablets… with liquid in, geddit? Nasty verruca? Get Bazooka, it’s got verrukill technology! Rough skin you feel the need to exfoliate with a brush? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and it’s the reason Garnier have designed their special exfo-brusher. Or maybe it’s Maybelline…

I’ve grown accustomed to pro-biotic yoghurts now. Everything seems to be pro-something in the advertising world, and I like those good bacteria that are in favour of my digestion. I’m a little unsure about those pre-biotic compounds though: if I want food that’s already been digested, I’ll got to McDonald’s (do-do-do-do-do, it’s full of shit).

We are, of course, supposed to be impressed. C’mon people, get a grip! These charlatans are selling the same crap tarted up and rebranded in fancy new packaging, but it’s a pretty thin disguise. The new formula with its fancy pseudoscientific name is just made-up nonsense that’s not an improvement created with the consumer in mind (unless you count the advertising execs in their sharp suits in the boardroom pondering how to fleece more cash from those they’ve already been fleecing blind for years, while increasing that number threefold in quarter one, etc). The reason I’m not buying is because this new mode of selling the same junk is an insult to our intelligence – that presents itself as appealing to our intelligence by presenting dumbed-down pseudoscience as somehow sincere and actually scientific. The truth is, it’s even worse than the ‘universe centres around you, be selfish’ pitches that tell the consumer, ‘you’re worth it’ and ‘it’s all about you’ etc. I say, wise up, don’t buy this rehashed garbage and buy what you want or need, not what your sold. The feeling you’ll get from doing so is grrrrrrrrrrrrreat!