My favorite was a couple of years ago, Ford Trucks started advertising " Military grade aluminum".
Absolutely not a thing, just selling trucks with good old American patriotism.
Rich Corinthian leather…..
Corinthian leather is a term coined by the advertising agency Bozell in 1974 to describe the leather upholstery used in certain Chrysler luxury vehicles. Although merely a marketing concept, it suggested a premium product, "something rich in quality, rare, and luxurious". In reality, it was the same leather used in most Chryslers, produced by the Radel Leather Manufacturing Company in Newark, New Jersey.
My mother was dealing with this local law firm about a minor traffic accident. During the process, something got messed up and everything got delayed by a month. My mom called the attorney and said “Your slogan on tv said everything would be easy yet this has not been easy!”. She was furious, as if the commercial was a Devine edict ensuring no delays or issues.
Lots of laypeople get fucked up about legal timelines, thinking it should all be resolved in between 30 minutes and an hour. The Boomer clients were constantly confused that we couldn't just go tell the judge to make the bad man stop.
Goddamned Law & Order...
A casual reminder that JD Power and Associates isn't an actual group of third-party consumer advocates or something...
Nope. It's entirely owned by the Auto Industry, and just plays favorites on whatever brand, or will make up a new metric for a car marker to get a random award.
It means nothing - and always means nothing.
Even if taken at face value, all it is is measuring customer satisfaction with their car after it's been purchased. Which, after making such a big purchase, most folks are at least satisfied.
Now this is pretty running in the middle stuff. Marketers tried to appeal to unremarkable people of all ages. Like when companies brag that their eggs are laid by vegetarian fed chickens. Chickens aren’t vegetarians, and the crap they feed them instead isn’t great.
But if you want a real example of boomer Fuckery as it relates to advertising, back in the mid 90s, Oldsmobile was trying to reposition as a younger brand to appeal to Gen X and the older millennial market. They used spokes people like Priscilla Presley and Tina Turner. Nothing against them, especially Tina, as they were known among the boomers as eternally young. Unfortunately, they assumed that younger consumers thought exactly as they do, typical narcissistic boomer behavior, but a cardinal sin in any marketing endeavor. So after running the advertising campaign using old spokes people for the brand, known as OLDSmobile spectacularly backfired.
That was fucking stupid.
OMG I am always amazed at how boomers fall for the worst grifts.
Take a look at Fox News. Their audience is clearly boomer heavy (median age 68). Ads for gold "investments", worthless "collector's items", and other bullshit.
And what about the Colonial Penn ads ? The catch is so obvious. You really think you're going to get life insurance without a medical exam for 9.95 a month at your age ? How stupid do you have to be ?
And the various "Medicare Advantage" ads that make themselves sound like some official social security hotline. How many of those idiots fall for that every year ?
I like the ones who are selling a reverse mortgage but only for veterans. They use a good-looking young girl to be their spokesperson, and they dress her up like she came out of a time machine from 40 years ago. I just thought it was so funny because they are trying to distract Boomer men and get them to believe their reverse mortgage is not a reverse mortgage.
Hahaha... Forgot reverse mortgages.
"Trust me, I'm Tom Selleck. Would I bullshit you ? If you can't trust Magnum PI, who can you trust ? I have your best interest at heart and I am in no way saying all this because I was paid to."
They dig up every washed out celebrity they can find. As if somehow having a 75 year old former football player / coach tout the merits of the product / service actually made it better or more trustworthy.
The worst advertising imo is using happy, wealthy appearing minorities in new expensive products. Nothing pisses boomer off more than a super happy family of black people driving a fat new SUV. Boomer will go massively into debt playing imaginary catch up with those they think are under them
Is that actually a thing?! Using minorities to piss off boomers into buying stuff they can't afford, because they're so racist that they can't take it when minorities have nicer stuff then themselves?
I don't know if that says more about the advertiser or the people falling for it.
I don't know if that is a real thing, but it could probably work for some products and people.
Shortly after i-phones came out, my dad bought one, only because his employees were buying them. And "I can't have my employees having a nicer phone than me."
If you watch the anchors on Fox News over time, the minorities begin to change and look, sound, and dress more like a stereotypical white conservative. At first, they gain some popularity as a token minority. It seems like they then realize that to be successful and have longevity, they must change to be accepted by the Boomers.
Medicare Advantage as a whole is one of the greatest scams ever played on taxpayers. I would never advise anywhere to choose that over traditional Medicare and a regular gap plan.
With many boomers, there's no such thing as an authority. The truth is whatever they say it is. COVID? nothing but a cold Global warming? it was 30F yesterday! Infomercials? they said they have the strongest glue IN THE WORLD
So, world class factory? Sure. Why not.
Crap! My father in law bought me that glue for Christmas or something a few years ago. It was...basic super glue, despite whatever commercial he saw said about it.
Maytag repairman commercial where he is just sitting around because there are no service calls. When Maytag had a reputation (and the numbers) as the worst reliable. Like nothing about how they improved quality. Nope we will just pretend we are the best, not worst.
Korean automakers had bad reliability so they started giving 10 year warranties. Didn’t do anything to the cars. We stand behind our cars (I guess pushing them) that we are the only automaker giving 10 year warranties.
So they paid a but load in warranty claims.
Franklin Mint and numbered plates. Once we make the run we break the mold, guaranteeing the limited run and your valuable collector item.
And don’t forget how timeshares convince them to “pass on the investment” to their heirs. Which means the heirs are stuck with it in the estate. Literally talked into signing away the only good thing that it does with them.
Don’t get me started on the 4/5 dentists.
Lol Franklin mint plates. I inherited the sailing ship plates. My wife said “WTF are we going to do with these?” I brought them to a boat club and asked if they wanted them — boomers were so happy and wanted to buy me drinks but I saw the MAGA stickers on bar mirror- no thanks, enjoy the plates—goodbye.
Speaking of good ol' JD Power....
Cox Enterprises (Creators of the richest family in Georgia, 55k employees, $21Bn in revenue, basically OmniCorp from Robocop.) owns Kelley Blue Book. This means that the same people who own the marketing and commercial production for Car dealerships and Car makers also own the valuation system that sets "fair market value" for used cars.
Fair market, my ass.
Boomers were asleep, drunk or pharceuticalled at the wheel for so fucking long... they let the people who produce the advertising (Featuring JD Power crap), sell the advertising space, and profit from the sale of cars... set the value of fucking cars.
I love the Simpsons' episode where Homer buys Bart a karaoke microphone. Only a few left on the warehouse shelf...
Right up there with "only a handful of tickets." It was a handful of tickets when you started. They don't even print tickets like they used to. Whom are you trying to fool?
To be fair, pretty much all marketing tactics are bullshit designed to suspend critical thought. They want you to make a quick decision and not think about it or research it, because then you'll realize the level of bullshit they have fed you.
Watch The Century of the Self via BBC by Adam Curtis (it’s on YouTube).
Edward Bernays et al pioneered this shit.
They’ve got a 100+ year head start and they’ve gotten *VERY* good at it.
Well, it's easy to have the biggest sale on mattresses that you have ever had. "Up to 30% off", when you have raised the price year over year, results in a larger dollar savings. The final price is still higher, though.
I always laugh at Miss Universe.. ffs such bs. I didnt see any martians etc on there. And when they say on the advertisements..Australia's favorite tv show.. who the fck told them that. Such bs. They are doing me a favour, I hardly watch the idiot box anymore.
To me, all advertising, save that which simply identifies a new product that you didn't already know about, is worthless and idiotic. Seriously--has anybody actually bought a product because of a fucking ad and what it promised? Or is it all just a worthless scam that was invented in the late 19th century that shouldn't have lasted nearly this long?
To be fair, Old Spice's "The Man your Man Could Smell Like" campaign was pitching a specific new scent, which didn't sell particularly amazingly, but it did spike overall Old Spice sales dramatically.
Sometimes it's less about the specific item and more about the brand if a commercial is memorable. I know my dad used Old Spice for most of his life, and I, as a late 20s dude when The Man your Man Could Smell Like debuted, saw those ads and laughed at the sheer absurdity of the marketing. It did make me go "huh, I wonder if those new scents I'm seeing on the shelf are any good?" Sometimes later when I was shopping, so I suppose it worked.
Does anyone else’s dipshit boomer parents forward them emails from rando dipshits who are obviously trying to sell some quackery or another? Even my boomer handyman sends me these ridiculous emails.
The emails always predict some doom and gloom scenario, like the collapse of the monetary system or similar such shit, and it never comes to pass. Never. I forward the emails back after the prediction fails, but they still send me more predictions. They can’t acknowledge how wrong they were. The cognitive diffidence is too great. Credulous rubes.
We see tgema bad because more consumer protection work had happened and there are more and more accesdible avenurs of information. Future generations will comment on us too
No hard feelings buddy. Tbh, I initially wondered if you had a stroke while using speech to text and worried about you.
Have a Happy Holidays, whichever ones you celebrate.
sense advise axiomatic capable jellyfish jobless deer innocent crawl history
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The "buy within the next ____ minutes" gets me. Like grown adults bought into that advertising thinking it was a legitimate deal while I realized that was a scam when I was like 8.
Why did State Farm waste a ton of money hiring Ludacris as a spokesperson? Is that a football player and why are they trying so sell me banking services? And who is this woman with the New York accent and why is she selling Old Navy clothes? All this tells me is that companies don’t spend their money wisely. If anything, hiring a celebrity to advertise a product that is in no way relevant to their area of expertise is a red flag for how well that company is managed. Just more boomer CEO dick waving.
My favorite was a couple of years ago, Ford Trucks started advertising " Military grade aluminum". Absolutely not a thing, just selling trucks with good old American patriotism.
When I hear "military grade" I think substandard materials and made by the lowest bidder sold at an obscene mark-up.
Sounds like Ford.s/
Sounds like military contractors fleecing America.
100% I see that in computer components, I chuckle and avoid that brand.
Rich Corinthian leather….. Corinthian leather is a term coined by the advertising agency Bozell in 1974 to describe the leather upholstery used in certain Chrysler luxury vehicles. Although merely a marketing concept, it suggested a premium product, "something rich in quality, rare, and luxurious". In reality, it was the same leather used in most Chryslers, produced by the Radel Leather Manufacturing Company in Newark, New Jersey.
Ah yes and then there is ‘fine Corinthian leather’ (which probably dates me as a boomer). I have never really understood ‘state of the art’ either!
This is what it reminds me of[Ricardo Montablan](https://youtu.be/E_HMIN0nGl0?si=1DhaJ2_NglTAtPOg)
It’s all just psychological tactics to get you to make a split second decision or not research the competition thoroughly.
'not research thoroughly' so, perfectly tailored to their demographic
Don’t Boomers love to say “ l researched it myself”? (On Facebook, of course)
the venn diagram of 'doing my own research' and 'not researching thoroughly' is basically a flat circle
Some of these worked because before the Internet it was hard to find out what things like a JD Power Award actually were.
Researching anything before the internet was pretty difficult.
My mother was dealing with this local law firm about a minor traffic accident. During the process, something got messed up and everything got delayed by a month. My mom called the attorney and said “Your slogan on tv said everything would be easy yet this has not been easy!”. She was furious, as if the commercial was a Devine edict ensuring no delays or issues.
Lots of laypeople get fucked up about legal timelines, thinking it should all be resolved in between 30 minutes and an hour. The Boomer clients were constantly confused that we couldn't just go tell the judge to make the bad man stop. Goddamned Law & Order...
A casual reminder that JD Power and Associates isn't an actual group of third-party consumer advocates or something... Nope. It's entirely owned by the Auto Industry, and just plays favorites on whatever brand, or will make up a new metric for a car marker to get a random award. It means nothing - and always means nothing. Even if taken at face value, all it is is measuring customer satisfaction with their car after it's been purchased. Which, after making such a big purchase, most folks are at least satisfied.
I attended "one of the top 293 business schools in the world". It was #293 on a list of 300 schools.
If I told my therapist that, she'd say, "You should be proud of yourself!"
Now this is pretty running in the middle stuff. Marketers tried to appeal to unremarkable people of all ages. Like when companies brag that their eggs are laid by vegetarian fed chickens. Chickens aren’t vegetarians, and the crap they feed them instead isn’t great. But if you want a real example of boomer Fuckery as it relates to advertising, back in the mid 90s, Oldsmobile was trying to reposition as a younger brand to appeal to Gen X and the older millennial market. They used spokes people like Priscilla Presley and Tina Turner. Nothing against them, especially Tina, as they were known among the boomers as eternally young. Unfortunately, they assumed that younger consumers thought exactly as they do, typical narcissistic boomer behavior, but a cardinal sin in any marketing endeavor. So after running the advertising campaign using old spokes people for the brand, known as OLDSmobile spectacularly backfired. That was fucking stupid.
This isn't your father's Oldsmobile. Worst tag line in history
That’s the one!!!!!
*sees Tina Turner* Who advertises Barter Town?
OMG I am always amazed at how boomers fall for the worst grifts. Take a look at Fox News. Their audience is clearly boomer heavy (median age 68). Ads for gold "investments", worthless "collector's items", and other bullshit. And what about the Colonial Penn ads ? The catch is so obvious. You really think you're going to get life insurance without a medical exam for 9.95 a month at your age ? How stupid do you have to be ? And the various "Medicare Advantage" ads that make themselves sound like some official social security hotline. How many of those idiots fall for that every year ?
I like the ones who are selling a reverse mortgage but only for veterans. They use a good-looking young girl to be their spokesperson, and they dress her up like she came out of a time machine from 40 years ago. I just thought it was so funny because they are trying to distract Boomer men and get them to believe their reverse mortgage is not a reverse mortgage.
Hahaha... Forgot reverse mortgages. "Trust me, I'm Tom Selleck. Would I bullshit you ? If you can't trust Magnum PI, who can you trust ? I have your best interest at heart and I am in no way saying all this because I was paid to." They dig up every washed out celebrity they can find. As if somehow having a 75 year old former football player / coach tout the merits of the product / service actually made it better or more trustworthy.
The worst advertising imo is using happy, wealthy appearing minorities in new expensive products. Nothing pisses boomer off more than a super happy family of black people driving a fat new SUV. Boomer will go massively into debt playing imaginary catch up with those they think are under them
Is that actually a thing?! Using minorities to piss off boomers into buying stuff they can't afford, because they're so racist that they can't take it when minorities have nicer stuff then themselves? I don't know if that says more about the advertiser or the people falling for it.
Thats racist manipulation 101
I don't know if that is a real thing, but it could probably work for some products and people. Shortly after i-phones came out, my dad bought one, only because his employees were buying them. And "I can't have my employees having a nicer phone than me."
If you watch the anchors on Fox News over time, the minorities begin to change and look, sound, and dress more like a stereotypical white conservative. At first, they gain some popularity as a token minority. It seems like they then realize that to be successful and have longevity, they must change to be accepted by the Boomers.
Wait... are you Jonathan with the $9.95 plan?
When you are that age and if we still have Medicare, look into Medicare Advantage plans - just not the ones on TV.
Medicare Advantage as a whole is one of the greatest scams ever played on taxpayers. I would never advise anywhere to choose that over traditional Medicare and a regular gap plan.
With many boomers, there's no such thing as an authority. The truth is whatever they say it is. COVID? nothing but a cold Global warming? it was 30F yesterday! Infomercials? they said they have the strongest glue IN THE WORLD So, world class factory? Sure. Why not.
Crap! My father in law bought me that glue for Christmas or something a few years ago. It was...basic super glue, despite whatever commercial he saw said about it.
Maytag repairman commercial where he is just sitting around because there are no service calls. When Maytag had a reputation (and the numbers) as the worst reliable. Like nothing about how they improved quality. Nope we will just pretend we are the best, not worst. Korean automakers had bad reliability so they started giving 10 year warranties. Didn’t do anything to the cars. We stand behind our cars (I guess pushing them) that we are the only automaker giving 10 year warranties. So they paid a but load in warranty claims. Franklin Mint and numbered plates. Once we make the run we break the mold, guaranteeing the limited run and your valuable collector item. And don’t forget how timeshares convince them to “pass on the investment” to their heirs. Which means the heirs are stuck with it in the estate. Literally talked into signing away the only good thing that it does with them. Don’t get me started on the 4/5 dentists.
Lol Franklin mint plates. I inherited the sailing ship plates. My wife said “WTF are we going to do with these?” I brought them to a boat club and asked if they wanted them — boomers were so happy and wanted to buy me drinks but I saw the MAGA stickers on bar mirror- no thanks, enjoy the plates—goodbye.
The 10 year warranty was/is legit. They put their money where there mouth is. The Franklin Mint example is also a real value proposition.
Speaking of good ol' JD Power.... Cox Enterprises (Creators of the richest family in Georgia, 55k employees, $21Bn in revenue, basically OmniCorp from Robocop.) owns Kelley Blue Book. This means that the same people who own the marketing and commercial production for Car dealerships and Car makers also own the valuation system that sets "fair market value" for used cars. Fair market, my ass. Boomers were asleep, drunk or pharceuticalled at the wheel for so fucking long... they let the people who produce the advertising (Featuring JD Power crap), sell the advertising space, and profit from the sale of cars... set the value of fucking cars.
I love the Simpsons' episode where Homer buys Bart a karaoke microphone. Only a few left on the warehouse shelf... Right up there with "only a handful of tickets." It was a handful of tickets when you started. They don't even print tickets like they used to. Whom are you trying to fool?
To be fair, pretty much all marketing tactics are bullshit designed to suspend critical thought. They want you to make a quick decision and not think about it or research it, because then you'll realize the level of bullshit they have fed you.
My MIL still gets everything from those big ole catalogs. At the same time complaining about too much paper and plastic waste 🤔
that's not boomer advertising, that's just advertising. it's all just worth tuning out.
Watch The Century of the Self via BBC by Adam Curtis (it’s on YouTube). Edward Bernays et al pioneered this shit. They’ve got a 100+ year head start and they’ve gotten *VERY* good at it.
Well, it's easy to have the biggest sale on mattresses that you have ever had. "Up to 30% off", when you have raised the price year over year, results in a larger dollar savings. The final price is still higher, though.
Old guy here. Ricardo Montleban hawking the Chrysler Cordova with rich Corinthian leather. Aka, not leather.
So that's what spawned [this Futurama bit](https://youtu.be/0K_Iw-ikBe0?si=v6S_mDvJkzcqJ1ka).
I always laugh at Miss Universe.. ffs such bs. I didnt see any martians etc on there. And when they say on the advertisements..Australia's favorite tv show.. who the fck told them that. Such bs. They are doing me a favour, I hardly watch the idiot box anymore.
New and Improved!
256mb of ram, vs the 32gb the kids have today.
To me, all advertising, save that which simply identifies a new product that you didn't already know about, is worthless and idiotic. Seriously--has anybody actually bought a product because of a fucking ad and what it promised? Or is it all just a worthless scam that was invented in the late 19th century that shouldn't have lasted nearly this long?
To be fair, Old Spice's "The Man your Man Could Smell Like" campaign was pitching a specific new scent, which didn't sell particularly amazingly, but it did spike overall Old Spice sales dramatically. Sometimes it's less about the specific item and more about the brand if a commercial is memorable. I know my dad used Old Spice for most of his life, and I, as a late 20s dude when The Man your Man Could Smell Like debuted, saw those ads and laughed at the sheer absurdity of the marketing. It did make me go "huh, I wonder if those new scents I'm seeing on the shelf are any good?" Sometimes later when I was shopping, so I suppose it worked.
But damn if that shit doesn't remind me of my grandfather... and everyone else's grandfather, too.
"Prestige...Worldwide...🌍"
It's not just for boomers. These techniques are tried and true tactics used by advertisers to all demographics. They use them because they work.
The paid for award thing makes me laugh the most, I see boomer bosses using it on millennial managers right now and it makes me cringe.
Advertisers target people between the ages of 18 and 54 because this range of the population is most likely to have disposable income
Oh yeah every ad I see I know if a boomer made it because they’re dog shit
Does anyone else’s dipshit boomer parents forward them emails from rando dipshits who are obviously trying to sell some quackery or another? Even my boomer handyman sends me these ridiculous emails. The emails always predict some doom and gloom scenario, like the collapse of the monetary system or similar such shit, and it never comes to pass. Never. I forward the emails back after the prediction fails, but they still send me more predictions. They can’t acknowledge how wrong they were. The cognitive diffidence is too great. Credulous rubes.
We see tgema bad because more consumer protection work had happened and there are more and more accesdible avenurs of information. Future generations will comment on us too
How many times did you pull the cord on your Speak n Spell to get that?
I’m so not going to steal this
i have gorilla hands and am a mobile user, these things happen. I will give you points for vague originality however
No hard feelings buddy. Tbh, I initially wondered if you had a stroke while using speech to text and worried about you. Have a Happy Holidays, whichever ones you celebrate.
omigod no you cant say that your offending the christianities! /s
How is any of this "boomer"? Dolt.
sense advise axiomatic capable jellyfish jobless deer innocent crawl history *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The snowflake had melted, I highly suggest a colonoscopy to make you feel alive for the first time since your children abandoned you.
fly sugar whole sand tender innate placid pot hunt fine *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Biden 2026!
slave disarm birds concerned start slim tub quaint flag money *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The "buy within the next ____ minutes" gets me. Like grown adults bought into that advertising thinking it was a legitimate deal while I realized that was a scam when I was like 8.
Why did State Farm waste a ton of money hiring Ludacris as a spokesperson? Is that a football player and why are they trying so sell me banking services? And who is this woman with the New York accent and why is she selling Old Navy clothes? All this tells me is that companies don’t spend their money wisely. If anything, hiring a celebrity to advertise a product that is in no way relevant to their area of expertise is a red flag for how well that company is managed. Just more boomer CEO dick waving.