Honesty in Advertising

I heard this on the radio, driving to lunch today:

• McDonalds Radio Commercial: "A cup of fresh-brewed coffee and McDonalds breakfast sandwich can bring you life-affirming focus."

During the afternoon, I read this in a B2B email advertisement:

• "Customer data integration (CDI) or, more broadly, customer-centric master data management (MDM) solutions, are gaining significant momentum, largely because of their ability to help organizations achieve critical cross-functional business imperatives to bolster customer profitability, reduce operational costs, and adhere to regulatory compliance. Companies have come to realize they can't achieve these cross-functional business imperatives without adopting customer-centricity throughout their business processes."

The first quote is intriguing. I thought having cancer was "life affirming". Maybe sipping coffee in a cardboard cup, while sitting on a plastic bench next to the condiment counter is the definition of "life affirming".

The second quote makes me feel stupid. I don't want to purchase things from people who make me feel stupid.

I don't blame copywriters for this. They are simply doing the job management asks them to do.

All --- we can do better. Let's start by simply being honest.