Showing posts with label Lysol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lysol. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Jumping on the flu bandwagon

It seems nobody is above opportunistic marketing to a germ-frightened population.

Clorox and Lysol clearly had a lot to gain from their products' germophobic appeal. From Google Adwords to cheesy commercials, they were right on it:



The biggest concern for consumers, though, is fake flu cures that promise miracles and yet often do more harm than good.

With that in mind, I was a little shocked to see the following ad on my bus yesterday:




(Sorry for the poor quality — I didn't want to use flash in a bus full of commuters. Click for larger versions.)

I understand that faith is a powerful thing, but is it really appropriate for a religious group to promise unscientific medical benefits from prayer? I don't want to sound bigoted, but I think a line has been crossed. IMHO, religious freedom shouldn't allow anyone to sucker the easily-influenced into giving up medical treatment in the name of faith, any more than a free market should allow snake oil salesmen to sell fake "cures" in mainstream ad venues.

I know I run a lot of ads on this blog that offend people. But now I've finally been offended. Good job, Christian Science!

What do you think?