Advertising and Deception 101

'People use whatever terms they can to create an impact'

Last week the Advertising Standards Agency slapped KFC's chickeny bottom for their advert that suggested that KFC has fresh chicken delivered to each store every day, when this actually isn't true.

But this is hardly surprising. We all know that companies sometimes tell lies to make them seem more appealing: It's said that Bold 2 in 1 is part of the fabric of life, Red Bull gives you wings, and that the government want a fairer, stronger, and more prosperous Britain.

There's been much in the news lately about how companies/executives/political parties have been deceptive. Everyday another group of people are being exposed.

So if you're Al Gore and you make an international film telling everyone they're going to burn in Hell you get the Nobel Peace Prize. If you embezzle the British public of their savings you get a six-figure pension. But if you say your chicken is delivered fresh everyday it will mean the ASA will send a man round with short trousers and a clip board to pull angry faces at you and tell you he's very, very cross.

It's the same with television programmes. If Bear Grylls goes out into a lake to catch a fish and can't manage to find one, the show would not be worth watching. So if they buy a fish from Sainsbury's and pretend he caught it in the name of entertainment it's not the end of the world.

And some viewers complained when it emerged that Andrew Marr doesn't actually drive a Nissan Figaro as is shown in the opening segment of his show. Oh God, no. Say it isn't so.

Some television has to be staged or it would not be worth watching. There would be no point in upsetting housewives who had settled down with a box of tissues to watch a reunion between a woman and her long-lost father on daytime television - only to have the father turn up at the woman's house when she's not in. It would be about as interesting as watching ITV3.

People like to be entertained when they watch television; it's why programmes like Countdown and Through the Keyhole get such low viewing figures. They don't contain any danger, exploding helicopters or car chases. For anyone to want to watch Through the Keyhole, a contestant would have to take the panel hostage and David Frost would have to explode into a million pieces, or at least break a few bones and then escape down a mountain with Keira Knightly while being chased by transvestite neo-Nazis.

It's the same when advertising products. Advertising is the fine art of making you believe that something you've never seen before is what you've been waiting for your whole life.

An advert for shampoo seldom takes place in a shower where most people wash their hair. The advertising agencies seem to believe that the majority of the population frequently wash their hair in the hot and steamy waterfall that they have in their back garden while tropical birds dry their hair with a towel when they're finished.

And it's not good enough to have an advert for shampoo that says, 'It makes your hair clean.' According to advertisers shampoo needs to invigorate, enrich, and cause multiple orgasms.

Back in the old days when people were born in chimneys and were only let out to be beaten, the adverts were much simpler. In magazines and newspapers it stated exactly what the product was, how much it cost, and included a little information about it. These days, an image of an orange on a beach where the sky is slowly turning to cheese is supposed to advertise a car. It's the power of dreams apparently.

Food becomes 'zesty' (sour), a 'delicacy' (something you would never dream of eating), 'cuisine' (an extra 60% above the price of 'food'), 'lemon-flavoured' (contains no lemon whatsoever) and 'old-fashioned' (from when E.coli was a side-dish).

Adverts are full of tedious music - like the Boots advert with 'Here Come the Girls' - who have been coming for nearly 2 years and obviously have no intention of arriving because in every advert they're always on their way and don't seem to be getting closer to their destination.

Or everyone seems to be holding their abdomen; walking around saying they're 'bluuurrrttedd', and having to take biffidus fartidium which is good bacteria.

And if they're not bloated they're either constipated or have severe diarrhoea.

I've been on the toilet for days with terrible diarrhoea, but if I take new Imodium Super Bung, I can save it all until tomorrow! So now I can carry on with my super life, run my hands through fountains in the town square, and smile at strangers!

Advertisers run the risk of irritating the public so much that they will never end up selling any products and it wouldn't be surprising if the woman from the Curanail/Criminail adverts has full police protection for her own safety. The advertising campaign is about as useful as having Jo Brand as the face of Actimel.

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Also, blinding people with vast amounts of information about extra features gets people to buy what is being advertised. A washing machine no longer only washes clothes. It has sat nav and internet and can send photos to mobile phones - which no one's really bothered with since Rebecca Loos.

It's also the same with the news. The language helps to create the tone. The Sun may say 'Dirty Old Pervert Finally in Jail', while on Newsround they may have 'Poor Little Kitty Goes Missing' and Newsnight would say 'George Osbourne to scrap failed FSA.'

The language helps to set the tone and make the audience go 'Ahhh' when there's a bag of puppies that have been found by the canal. Or 'Boooooo' when an MP walks on screen. But there's usually more use of the terms 'Recession', 'Turmoil', and 'Death' on a serious programme like Newsnight and phrases like 'Celebrity', 'Celebrity Wedding', and 'Celebrity Mansions' on the lower-key programmes.

You wouldn't expect Jeremy Paxman to introduce Newsnight and they sit at the desk showing the audience at home pictures of nipple-slips from Heat magazine.

Many companies from advertisers to newsgroups are beginning to be scrutinized about their use of language; creating effect but inadvertently not being technically correct.

But the use of emotive language has taken to the streets. People use whatever terms they can to create an impact.

For example, a thug may stop you in the street, smash the base off a glass bottle and say, 'I'm gonna glass you!' - which certainly creates impact and sounds quite threatening and mean. But you would have to stop and think very carefully and explain to them, in the heat of the situation and in the name of language, that 'glass' is a noun, not a verb, and therefore should not be conjugated.

Then hope this doesn't make things worse.