This Halloween campaign could scare you to death

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What the holy hell?!? You would be justified in asking.

According to Stanford School of Medicine, these 1951 ads are — ironically — making fun of other brands' empty marketing promises of being "better for you" rather than fighting against the real medical science that would force ads to start to be more honest about the deadliness of their products a decade later.

Towards the end of the era in which false medical claims were endemic (early 1950s) the Old Gold brand had a prolonged campaign - with more than 50 variations on this theme - in which they touted: "We Don't Try to Scare You with Medical Claims." Ironically, many of these ads in their fine print make outlandish statements that Old Golds were less irritating and thus safer than the competition. Somehow they calculated that the public would not see this obvious hypocrisy. Note the white box strangely reminiscent of the Surgeon General's warning introduced years later. In what can only be characterized as rank hypocrisy, they claim Old Gold's are less irritating and easier on the throat.

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Boo! **cough cough cough**