THE LIES
Good people lie to themselves
People lie when it’s in their best interest, when it’s for money, their career. The Malketeers promoting junk food don’t think of themselves as bad people selling obesity and malnutrition. They think of themselves as selling “fun” foods that people like eating.
People lie to themselves to justify their bad acts and maintain a positive view of themselves.
Hack companies have lies ingrained in their culture and their own corporate versions of Orwellian doublespeak. This allows nice, hard-working people to slowly poison millions of other people while never having to think of themselves as being bad people. It’s a neat trick.
Honest people lie to us
They don’t want thinking past the taste – Ads promote fun and flavor. They don’t care about nutrition and health. Malketeers care about their goals – financial projections, marketing plans, and product developments. They want people to consume the unhealthy crap that they sell instead of the unhealthy crap that someone else sells. Their focus is on increasing sales and beating the competition. It takes the combined efforts of many honest, smart, and hard-working people to promote hacks, create levers and spread lies.
Lies are okay in a war
In a 1932 essay by Kurt Tucholsky, a fictional diplomat speaks about the horrors of war.
"The war?" says Tucholsky's diplomat, "I cannot find it to be so bad! The death of one man: this is a catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of deaths: that is a statistic!"
Marketeers have adopted the language or war – they make plans, create alliances, launch campaigns, have targets, and seek to defeat the competition. They ‘frame the facts’ in attempts to deceive people. Bending the truth is okay in a war. Propaganda is required for victory. Malketeers focus on their results, not on collateral damage – like your health, the health of a nation.
Pepsi’s “Fun for you” brands
Fun-maybe. Terrible for you-certainly. BTW Pepsi classifies it’s other brands as “better for you” and “good for you” though almost all the brands are bad for you. If they were honest marketeers instead of fun, better and good they’d use terrible for you, better than terrible for you, and bad for you.
Corporate Catchphrase Lies
“Calories in, calories out.” Coca-Cola and other companies shift the blame from their role in the Sick-Awful Diet (SAD) to you - by claiming that you aren’t exercising enough. Obesity is your fault. Everyone knows that to “calorie balance” a soda you should go for a 2-mile walk.
“A calorie is a calorie.” This ignores that some calories, like those from added sugar, have no nutrients, make you tired, feel hungry, and damage the bodies weight control hormones. Other calories, like veggies, have nutrients and make you feel full.
“Part of a healthy breakfast.” Most cereals aren’t healthy. If you eat a lot of healthy stuff, your breakfast might still be healthy despite the cereal.
Flavors lie to us - they are designed hacks.
Natural flavors give us information on how edible and nutritious something is.
- Ripe fruits taste sweet, good.
- Vegetables taste good – they taste better with a fat.
- Meats taste good – they taste better when cooked.
For animal’s in their native habitat, when something tastes good, it’s good for them. An honest system that keeps the animals alive and reproducing.
Processed “foods” are designed for flavor (and low costs). Flavor hacks include tastes, colors, and textures. Micro-nutrients are not a priority and are destroyed in the creation of processed food. Thus the “food” created by Malketeers is flavor and calories, without the nutrients that will keep you thriving and reproducing.
Doritos – the color, texture, and tastes are designed so people will eat them without feeling full. Pepsi food designers and malketeers have done the thinking. Bubba, the consumer who buys a bag and mindlessly eats the bag, is only reacting.
When we love these flavors, we love an illusion. They are delicious, yet empty and harmful. These foods are part of a Sick Awful Diet (SAD) and not a Nutrition Energy Diet (NED).
Labels are lies
The color of the label is a lie – bright colors grab our attention. Ripe fruit has bright colors. Branded products make grocery aisles colorful.
The words on the label lies:
A cookie might be fat-free, sugar-free, or organic and still lousy for you.
Diet sodas are bad for people on a diet and their long-term affects are not yet known.
Unnatural things are called natural.
While the words are regulated, the regulations are more influenced by manufacturers, than consumer advocates.
“Healthy” only refers to having a small amount of fat and sodium in the product – not the amount of added sugar.
“Sugar free” normally means something has artificial sweeteners.
“Fat free” is often a product full or sugar and fillers.
“Vitamins added.” Manufactured added vitamins aren’t absorbed as well as those found naturally in real foods.
“Natural” is a term not regulated by the FDA.
Example: I was doing a long drive and wanted some water. I didn’t need a full case and looked for a six pack of water. I saw Nestle Splash Lemon water bottles that promoted:
“0 Sugars and Calories” “Natural Lemon Flavored Water Beverage with other Natural Flavors”
“water beverage” WTH?
Besides grain alcohol, everything we drink is a “water beverage.”
Always read the fine print. I wanted water and ended up with a 6-pack of sweet slime.
I expected an ‘essence’ water with a slight lemon taste. I ignored my own “rules” and did not read the fine print before buying it. I got Bubba’d.
After getting on the road, I sipped it and was surprised by how sweet it was. Then I looked at the ingredients – Sucralose, an artificial sweetener was listed. The phrasing on the label was deceptive – It contains some natural flavors and strong artificial flavors. This wasn’t water, more like a flat diet soda.
Fat-free, sugar-free, low sodium, natural, vitamins, etc., are on labels because malketeers want you to think that they’re healthy products. It allows you to feel good that you’re making healthy choices. Ignore the big fonts on the front label. Look at the small print on the back. If you don’t know what something is - should you eat it?
A/B Tested Lies
A/B testing is simply trying two things and seeing which one works better. Pick the one that works best and then A/B test again, and again. Marketeers are quickening the pace of A/B testing in marketplaces. Online A/B testing is becoming more automated.
With A/B testing results are everything, the means are unimportant.
Example: Click-bait gets relentlessly A/B tested. The headlines hack your attention and make you want to read more. To read more you click the link, the lever. Sometimes you’ll find that the article has little, or nothing to do with, the clickbait headline. With clickbait – you’re not fishing, you’re the fish.
A/B testing makes a hack-lever-lie offer harder to resist – with each A/B repetition, performance increases – more people react, less can resist.
Your Busness
Should you buy from companies and consume “foods” that try to deceive you?
Best not to become collateral damage in a marketing war between massive companies.