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39 Ways Marketing Has Messed With All of Our Brains

By:: Cracked Writers; Brian C. Miller

June 09, 2022

39 Ways Marketing Has Messed With All of Our Brains

We're pretty used to commercials-- We're pretty much bombarded with them everywhere we look, whether we're driving down the highway, waiting for a bus, or just taking a seat on a bench in the park… Even previously commercial free streaming services like Netflix seem to be hinting at the inevitable return of the tried and true method of getting us to spend our hard earned money on stuff.

What's more interesting than commercials themselves is the way that they darkly manipulate or even outright lie to us. While it certainly makes sense… There's something dark about the amount of fakery and “movie magic” that goes into selling us things. Does that ice cream look appetizing? Hope you enjoy cold mashed potatoes, because that's what you're actually looking at.

Ever wonder why most of your food never actually looks like the picture on the menu? It's probably because those pictures are actually held together with glue and motor oil and other extremely non-edible substances.

Here are some of the craziest examples of companies messing with our brains.

39 "No Animals Were Harmed"

NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN THAT NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED. Animals were harmed, or even died, while filming movies such as Life of Pi and The Hobbit. Those got the American Humane Association's seal of approval anyway, so as not to upset Hollywood types. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

38 Supplements and Your Immune System

immune Support Supplement with neros, LY Ministrate Helps Support Your Immune System* No Water Needed SUPPLEMENTS CAN HELP YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM- EXCEPT THAT NO, THEY CAN'T. Immunity boosters have minerals, vitamins, and herbs. You may have noticed they also have a nifty asterisk. It leads you to the small print, which tells you they don't have any evidence, and you shouldn't use them for their advertised purpose. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

37 Fake Hair for Shampoo Commercials

CHECK OUT ALL THAT FAKE HAIR. Shampoo ads are just the beginning-most fashion shots enhance the model's hair with extensions. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

36 Hand Sanitizers

HAND SANITIZERS KILL 99.99% IN OF GERMS- A LAB. HAND SANITIZER KILLS 99.99% of GERMS DÉSINFECTANT Sanitizers are tested in lab conditions that don't match those of the real world, where they are supposed to do the bug-killing. Also, the surviving germs may or may not be the worst of the bunch. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

35 ...No Weight Loss Shoes, Either.

34 Sorry, there's no weight loss lotion

33 Trans Fat

CRACKED.COM NO TRANS FAT MEANS OK, MAYBE A LIL' BIT. According to FDA regulations, products can be labeled as trans-fat-free as long as they contain less than half a gram per serving. That means you can swallow half your maximum daily intake with just two servings of healthy stuff. — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

32 The Reality of Wasabi

THAT WASABI YOU'RE PAYING FOR IS LIKELY NOT WASABI. Real wasabi is very hard to come by. Unless you're eating at an expensive place, the paste on your sushi is mainly horseradish with green food coloring. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

31 Bacon's Comeback

Bacon CRACKED CON Remember back in the 2000s, when everything from chewing gum to lube came in bacon? It was a confusing and chaotic time, and it was all because the health craze of the '80s plummeted pork sales, so executives crafted a backlash as a way to, again, sell more ba- con. You'd think salty fat wouldn't be so hard to sell, but here we are. — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

30 The All American Breakfast

The American Breakfast THIS IS WHAT BEIN LOVE REALLY BECAUSE SEX CRACKED.COM Picture a classic American breakfast: a smor- gasbord of eggs, meat, at least one kind of fried potatoes, and cake for some reason. This was totally unrecognizable as breakfast to Americans before the 1920s, who largely just ate a slice of toast and a cup of coffee in the morning, until Edward Bernays, a PR maverick who happened to be Sígmund Freud's nephew, was tasked by a client to sell more bacon. Не went around to a bunch of doctors, needled them with questions like People should eat — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

29 Coffee Breaks

Coffee Breaks coffee break CRACKED.COM The coffee break was technically invented by defense plants during World War II be- cause if their workers didn't stay alert, planes fell apart and stuff. What other in- dustries' workers were doing during their breaks is anyone's guess (definitely mas- turbating), but it didn't become wide- spread and wasn't even called a coffee break until it reached the ears of the Pan American Coffee Bureau in 1952, when their launched their Give Yourself a Cof- fee-Break campaign to take advantage of the opportunity to sell more coffee. By the end of the year, 80% — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

28 Orange Juice

Orange Juice CRACKED.COM In the 19th century, citrus fruits were so expensive to produce and transport that most people couldn't afford them, let alone throw most of it away and only drink the juice. Then the U.S. yo- inked California and started planting the shit out of some orange trees, real- izing too late that they had way too many orange trees, so citrus titan Sunk- ist started pushing orange juice as the breakfast beverage of champions and all but pleading consumers to help them get rid of some of these oranges. — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

27 Common Yogurt Bacteria

NO, THAT YOGURT DOESN'T HAVE ITS OWN KIND OF BACTERIA. WITH BIFIDUS REGULARIS® TIVI Did you notice the ® symbol next to Bifidus Regularis? That's there because it's a made-up name. The Bifidus in Activia is Bifidobacterium animalis, also found in other brands of yogurt. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

26 Thriller Writers Have Help

HOW DO 10LOST THRILLER N AUTHORS You messed up big-time. Dr. Cross.* WRITE SO MANY JAMES BOOKS? PERSO JAMES PATTERSON EASY-EXA THEY DON'T. CRISS Best-selling authors such as James Patterson, Wilbur Smith, and others just write a short outline for each chapter. Hired co-writers do most of the work. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

25 Real Pumpkin? Yeah Ok.

Libby's For One 9° Pie WHEN IS A PUMPKIN NOT A 100% Pure PUMPKIN PUMPKIN? ALL Canned pumpkin purée is often made with winter squash, as it has better texture and flavor. These are all related species, so the FDA is OK with labeling any of them as pure pumpkin. S - CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

24 Mountain Water

Source: 25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen

23 Wedding Registries

Wedding Registries CRACKED.COM By the 1920s, the ancient practice of showering newlyweds with weird sym- bolic gifts had mostly died out, and only their closest friends and family were expected to do anything more than party their faces off. That didn't suit department store Marshall Fields, who invented the wedding registry in 1924 to sell more merchandise under the guise of providing the couple with everything they need to start their new life (except any kind of useful sex edu- cation). — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

22 Father's Day

Father's Day DAD CRACKED.COM By the time Father's Day became a national holiday in 1972, Sonora Smart Dodd had been campaigning for it for some time, because why should moms get all the fun? She didn't succeed, however, until she appealed to the Associated Men's Wear Retailers, who established a whole council to promote the holi- day. That's right: Father's Day was established to sell ties. — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

21 Engagement Rings

Diamond Engagement Rings CRACKED.COM These days, asking someone to marry you without the presentation of a little velvet box is a good way to get a no, you cheapass, but few people ex- changed engagement rings at all be- fore the 1930s, and even fewer of those rings contained diamonds. That was around the time the De Beers company came into a massive glut of diamonds and, to avoid crashing prices, con- vinced the public via a massive market- ing campaign that you didn't really love someone unless you put the product of horrific mining practices on their finger. — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

20 Shaving

Shaving CRACKED.COM The idea that hair is only desirable on some parts of a woman's body and not others can be traced back to about 1915, before which not much of their non-face parts were even seen in pub- lic, so no one cared. Then, the skimpier fashions of the flapper era gave Gillette the idea to convince women that armpit and leg hair is gross, actually, and they just so happened to have the product to fix it. — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

19 Crashes

Orange NO CRASH ENERGY DRINKS MEAN NO SUGAR CRASH. 5-hour Oran ENERGY Some of these beverages will tell you that you won't crash Hours of energy+ after drinking them, as they contain no Sugar free sugar. Notice that they 4 calories don't say a word about the caffeine crash. No Sugar Crash CRACKED.COM DIETARY SUPPLEMEN — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

18 Short of Ink?

ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE OUT OF INK? BK Y C - LC525XL-Y elite Not only are ink cartridges mortgage-your-house PUSH POUSSEZ expensive-they are somethimes rigged to stop PUSH MUSSEZ printing while they still contain ink, so you have to buy more before you really need it. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

17 Soapy Beer

DOES THAT BEER LOOK DELICIOUSLY FROTHY? IT MIGHT BE SOAP. A little bit of dish soap is added to beer, coffee, milk, and other beverages for ads to make them look bubblier than they are when you pour them. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

16 Before & After Photos

CRACKED.COM BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS CAN BE TAKEN A FEW MINUTES APART. Change to better-fitting clothes, change your posture, suck in your gut, and... that's it! No weight loss or any other real change is needed, as shown by this personal trainer on her Instagram account. — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

15 Ten Commandments Monuments

Ten Commandments Monuments the Ten Commandments 1 AM theLORD 1bg God Thee sade have other uses before DE Thru shall not make N rhyself you grases Images Thes shall ml JODE The et the Lare IN God in sale Remember the + km E kcip Sepor IN Jather and the author as dig the days BER b long work et lead wild Lura the Gol glocal det Thou state Day - Three und 603 annit Thre stats the umal Thee العماد por tra Jelso unness apainst 199 srigbler Thes stalt PET can no brighter's Thos the 110 no originate — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

14 The Olympics

The Olympic Torch CRACKED.COM The Olympic flame has always been a part of the festivities, but the idea of carrying it from Greece to the site of the games was invented by Nazi Ger- many for the 1936 Berlin games. The thinking behind it was pretty nebu- lous, but basically, they wanted to at- tract tourists, convince them that Nazi Germany was cool, and generally nor- malize torch-wielding Nazis. — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

13 Miss America

The Miss America Pageant CRACKED.COM Believe it or not, New Jersey hasn't always been an enthusias- tic supporter of young women's excellence. The Miss America pageant began in 1921 as a swim- suit competition to lure tourists back to Atlantic City once sum- mer was over in the time-hon- ored marketing tradition of boobs. — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

12 Herpes

Herpes Stigma CRACKED.COM Most people have some type of herpes virus, so before the '80s, no one really cared if it was on your face or your junk. Arguably, the former is worse be- cause everyone can see it, but it was so normalized that even that didn't matter until the creators of a herpes medica- tion called Zovirax started telling the public there was a difference between cold sores (fine and normal) and gen- ital herpes (a dreadful pox that should confine you to a colony of some sort) because no one would buy their stuff otherwise. — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

11 Shoe Polish Meat

CRACKED.COM SHOE POLISH MAKES MEAT SO APPETIZING. Grilled meats looks delicious in ads-even if it's raw meat with shoe polish rubbed on. It's easier than grilling it for real. — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

10 Glue for Milk

DOES THE CEREAL IN THE AD LOOK YUMMY? THAT'S BECAUSE OF THE GLUE. Glue kinda looks like milk, but is much thicker, so it supports the cereal better and doesn't make it as soggy as it is in your bowl. ELMER'S e-All SE GLUE CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

9 Sugar's Many Names

CRACKED.COM NO NO, THIS DOESN'T CONTAIN SUGAR. IT HAS... UM... OTHER STUFF. Many products hide the fact that they contain added sugar by calling it something else in the ingredients list. Some known aliases are: fruit juice concentrate, evaporated corn sweetener, malt syrup, lactose, sucrose, nectar... — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

8 Your Real Thread Counts

IT'S LIKELY YOUR BED SHEETS AREN'T REALLY 800-THREAD COUNT. Many bedding companies count the number of plies (fabric strands) that make up a single thread. So a 200-thread count sheet with 4-ply threads is advertised as 800-thread count. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

7 The History of Santa Claus

Santa Claus 015 re 04-6466131 Coca-Cola Merry Christmas Coca-Cola ca-Cola Coca-Ca المياة أهلى مع CRACKED G COM Of course, Santa as we know him wasn't popularized until 1931, when Coca-Cola unveiled its latest holiday campaign fea- turing the red-coated, red-nosed, huh, suspiciously red-focused Santa of the modern era, inspired by the description in Twas the Night Before Christmas. Before then, Santa was depicted as ev- erything from a tiny elf to the actual bishop named Saint Nicholas. You might instead like to celebrate Santa as a Vi- king god with blue or brown robes who rides an eight-legged horse and doles out — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

6 Christmas Lights

Christmas Lights GRACKED.COM People used to light their dry-ass Christ- mas trees with actual candles, which was obviously super dangerous, but they weren't gonna just not risk a fiery death when holiday cheer was on the line. The first electric Christmas lights were strung up by Thomas Edison around his New Jer- sey laboratory in 1880 to show people how cool electricity was. Two years later, one of his workers put the lights on an actúal tree in a window on the busy Manhattan street where he lived, and that's why you have to wrestle with a tangled mess once — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

5 Spoiler Culture

Spoilers GRACKED.COM Nobody really cared about spoiling the plot of a movie or book until the 1960 release of Psycho, when Alfred Hitchcock went around buying every copy of the novel the movie was based on that he could find and promotional materials encouraged audiences not to tell their friends what happens. Hitch- cock may have truly believed going in blind was the best way to experience the movie, but the mystery he created sure helped to sell a lot of tickets. — **Source:** **15 Cultural Phenomena That Were Just Marketing Ploys**

4 Fuel Economy Tests

CAR MAKERS KEEP CHEATING ON FUEL ECONOMY TESTS. Manufacturers have learned that their cars don't need good mileage on the streets-only during the tests. It doesn't help that the EPA only checks 15% of new car models, and they take the manufacturer's word on the rest. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

3 Motor Oil Syrup

MMMM... PENNZOIL. PENNZOIL Motor oil is used instead of syrup to photograph pancakes, as it doesn't Korea - - des and responsive absorb as fast and looks better. ENNZ CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

2 Mashed Potato Ice Cream

CARE FOR SOME... UM... COLORED POTATOES? Real ice cream is hard to photograph in a studio, as it melts under the lights. That firm, delicious- looking cream you see in ads is mashed potatoes. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

1 Battery Life

ADVERTISED BATTERY LIFE REFLECTS HOPELESSLY UNREALISTIC CONDITIONS. Yes, you can get your computer to run 15 hours on a single charge-if you disable WiFi, dim your monitor, and don't run anything or play any music or video. That's how that number was arrived at. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **25 Marketing Lies Somehow Still Seen**

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