Deceptive Marketing Quotes

I've gotten emails from people who purchased items from an infomercial, only to find out that the shipping was more expensive than the item itself. The lesson: If you truly want to order something you see on TV, go online to the product's website and see if you can find out more information.

Have I ever had dance lessons? I'm mobile, but not nearly as much as our promotional videos lead people to believe.

The art of publicity is a black art.

Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.

Normally I would not recommend a book that tells you how to make money in the stock market. Most of these books are aimed at gullible folk, and they usually make much more money for their authors than they do for the investing public.

Some of them wanted to sell me snake oil and I'm not necessarily going to dismiss all of these, as I have never found a rusty snake.

Hype is supposed to overpromise and underdeliver, not overpromise and overdeliver. Usually, it doesn't deliver at all - it takes your money and keeps your pizza.

I think that any time reality doesn't match your expectations, it means that marketing was involved.

Never give us what we really want. Cut the dream into pieces and scatter them like ashes. Dole out the empty promises. Package our aspirations and sell them to us, cheaply made enough to fall apart.

The U.S. government alleges that for the past 45 years, the companies that manufacture and sell tobacco have waged an intentional and coordinated campaign of deceit.

The culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises. The promissory note which, with its plots and staging, it draws on pleasure is endlessly prolonged; the promise, which is actually all the spectacle consists of, is illusory: all it actually confirms is that the real point will never be reached, that the diner must be satisfied with the menu.

The language of salesmanship was no doubt born with the first fashions in fig leaves in the garden of Eden. A strange concept has grown around it: if something is to be sold, inaccuracy is not immoral. Hence the art of advertisement - untruthfulness combined with repetition.

Welcome to Suckersville, man.

You know when you see an advertisement for a casino, and they have a picture of a guy winning money? That's false advertising, because that happens the least. That's like if you're advertising a hamburger, they could show a guy choking. "This is what happened once."

Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.

Good advertising can make people buy your product even if it sucks ... A dollar spent on brainwashing is more cost-effective than a dollar spent on product improvement.

Health foods make promises that only the Second Coming could fulfill.

An ad that pretends to be art is – at absolute best – like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you.

Sometimes, the advertising is better than the product. Nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising. Everyone tries the thing and never buys it again.

The Senate was holding hearings on deceptive sweepstakes practices. These companies target the elderly, making them think they're going to get a bunch of money, when in reality they never see any of it. The most popular of these scams is called Social Security.

If people felt that they were misled with 'It Comes at Night,' they should know that the marketing here is deliberately misleading you in an honest way, in that we're not hiding what isn't there: we're hiding what is there.

Marketing is essentially about feeding the poop back to diners fast enough to make them think they're still getting real food.

Several months ago, out of the blue, a company named "Cingular" started sending me bills. I had never heard of Cingular, and I honestly did not know what these bills were for, so I put them in the pile where I keep documents that I intend to scrutinize more carefully later on, after my death. Then I started seeing TV commercials for Cingular, but of course they did not make it clear what Cingular is, because the First Rule of Modern Advertising is: "Never reveal what you are advertising."

Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire.

Lying and cheating in advertising, in the long run, are commercial suicide. Dishonesty in advertising destroys not only confidence in advertising, but also in the medium which carries the dishonest advertisement. . . . No one can be ill in a community without endangering others; no advertiser can be dishonest without casting suspicion upon others.