I was reading Times of India today morning, and the Front Quarter page Advertisement caught my eye. It was an advertisement for Flair pens.
Boldly they advertised – “World’s Longest writing Pen” with a small *star* in the end. I was curious to know how they found out about the “longest” part and expected some kind of survey / study / research.
But to my surprise, the star legend told me something that made me laugh – followed by some amount of anger. Here is the reason why.
The star meant this –
“Probably the Longest Writing Gel Pen & Ball Pen in the world”.
It essentially means that there is absolutely no truth in what they have advertised. They have not bothered to check, neither have they confirmed it from any independent study.
Think again – they have in BIG bold put it as the World’s Longest writing pen and then they have added “probably” in tiny winy letters.
This is just an example, but most of the today’s ads are on similar lines. They claim something that is not true and mask it with fine letters !
Question to readers?
Who is responsible for such idiotic Ads? The client, The Ad agency or the newspaper that is publishing it?