Before You Try To Slip One By Your Prospects

Exaggeration Doesn’t Pay

I was eating breakfast minding my own business the other morning when an ad came on the radio that asked how I would like to read 1,000 times faster.  Hmm, that’s enough to put down the shredded wheat for a moment. 

The ad went on to ask what it would be right to read 10 books in the time it takes to read one.  Math wasn’t my favorite subject back in school, but reading 10 times faster is much different than 1,000.  The ad goes on to say that you can increase your reading speed by 1,000% - that’s not the same as reading 1,000 times faster.  Maybe they didn’t make the claim of reading 1,000 times faster.

It took me three times to actually realize that the first line does say “1,000 times faster not 1,000% faster.”  Inaccuracies in advertising drive me crazy.  A pre-produced television ad for jewelers shows pictures of Monument Valley.  The voice over states that “the rocks were carved by glaciers and must be 10,000 feet tall.”   No they were carved by erosion and are only 1,000 feet tall.  If they can’t get that right, how accurate are they about the jewelry?

Perhaps a normal person wouldn’t notice, but why risk they lie when the truth is just as interesting and more believable?