Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Ahh, if only Dorian Gray had heard about this stuff....



The thought that there are people out there who will happily (read:desperately) shell out good, hard-earned money for this stuff doesn't dampen my thorough enjoyment of this commercial.

I really do love ads like this; commercials for products which are so obviously snake oil. Work at Home Millionaire, the Joy of House-Flipping, Beat the Stock Market, Pay off your Credit Cards at pennies on the Dollar, Beat the IRS at their Own Game- it's all good.

What makes commercials for exercise machines, acne products, weight-loss drugs and "Restoring Youth" creams especially delightful is the testimony of doctors which is always included; in this one, a guy we have never heard of (and will never hear of again) assures us that he would never "risk his reputation" endorsing this product if he wasn't sure he worked. Wow, that carries so much clout with me. I mean, check out that official-looking white jacket. He MUST be a doctor.

Not to mention that it makes SO MUCH SENSE that a company which has basically discovered the Fountain of Youth would announce the discovery on a commercial running during "The Secrets of the Knights Templar" on the Planet Green channel on a Sunday afternoon, rather than hold a press conference and turn the formula over to the Food and Drug Administration for evaluation. After all, what could they get out of approval of the FDA? Just access to every pharmacy in the United States, coverage from every major network and newspaper, and potentially billions in sales. Who needs that when you've got some doctor to give a five-second blurb promising to "stand behind" it's product?

Now, I myself have not aged in years. But I don't use this cream- I've taken the old-fashioned (though rather expensive) route of hiring a painter to capture my likeness on canvas, and then transferring my soul to the finished product. (It's not like I was using it anyway.) Sure, it's not a strategy endorsed by any doctors I know of. But it also doesn't involve rubbing stem cells on my face. I mean, that just sounds gross.

3 comments:

  1. According to the ad YOUR stem cells "slow down." They "stop producing."

    Why were they moving? What do they produce? It's never stated.

    But it has to be true, right? It SOUNDS so scientific.

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    1. Mention stem cells and people perk right up because we've heard so much buzz about them and the potential they have to cure diseases and disorders. How, exactly, stem cells work is something people are, at best, fuzzy on. Enter the snake oil salesmen exploiting the ignorance.

      This reminds me of the spam I get from time to time about Miracle Cures Big Pharma Doesn't Want You To Know About(!!!!). If you stop to think about it--which most people don't--why would Big Pharma smother something that could make them billions of dollars? So they can make a fraction of that off what they're selling now? My 'favorite' of those scams is the one that promotes ingesting ground apricot pits and apple seeds for the B vitamin that doesn't actually exist (I forget the number they gave it. B15 or something) and--I kid you not--the cyanide as a cure for cancer. I pointed out to the idiot who told me about the ad that a) the B vitamin it touted didn't exist and b) cyanide KILLS YOU, but that wasn't enough to convince him it was bunk. I never did hear what the oncologist he said he was going to talk to said about the 'miracle' cure. *snickers*

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  2. Selling living sensibly doesn't seem to pay off as well as selling quack medicine. Watterson was right. Virtue needs more cheap thrills.

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