The Fake Testimonial. Now with more Fake.

As I’ve said, the Fake Testimonial is the lowest form of advertising. “Chuck” Schwab has polished the turd to a super shiny sheen by cartoonizing the “customers.” Yes, this campaign has been around since October, but the latest spot featuring the woman on the ski lift—shown ad nauseam during the Olympics—just set me off. Chuck's message is exactly the same as TD Waterhouse and many other brokerage firms: We let You take control of your investments! It’s just delivered by fake-cartoon fake non-customer paid actors mouthing fake words written by a fake writer, aka an ad copywriter. You can watch the fakery here.

Maybe the dumbest fake testimonial ad I've ever seen.

(click ad, on Broadway near 21st) Yes, this impossible-to-impress commercial model who's probably never used a BofA ATM is "impressed" that she got paid to stand in a studio for maybe an hour giving the photographer, "impressed." Could even be a stock photo, who knows. Bank of America are experts at this crap. Previously in terrible fake testimonial ads:
• Waldbaum's.
• Julian Assange.
• fake dead kids.
• fake cancer patient.
• fake Microsoft customers.

Has Memorial Sloan-Kettering finally discontinued its specious fake testimonials?

(click ads for closer look)
As I wrote last September, the woman above left looked pretty damn healthy for a cancer patient. That's because the cute redhead was one of several glowing-faced non-patient/models used surreptitiously by Sloan-Kettering to represent theoretical cancer cases as part of a new, ubiquitous New York City print campaign.
Well this month, the cancer center finally inserted an actual real patient into the mix, above right. She's "Joyce," and you can read her story at MSKfirst.org/joyce. However, they're still using the models on the homepage. Just keep hitting Refresh to cycle through the fake patients. FYI: medical facilities usually put a disclaimer [such as: "model used for illustrative purposes only"] in fake patient ads.
(Fakery in adland is Standard Operational Procedure. There's fake lawyers, fake hot internet daters, fake chairmen of the board, fake Skoal brothers, fake office workers, and fake 13-year-old drunks.)
on Gawker:
The Fake Testimonial.

copyranter on ANIMAL NY: maybe the dumbest fake testimonial I've ever seen.

The fake testimonial is a very popular lie well disguised. But this one for Waldbaum's is particularly evil. (link)

Welcome to the (fake) people_ready business.

Microsoft has done good advertising, like, never. But this new fakery is fucking foul. Fake Business. Fake People. Fake Benefits. You're people ready? That's novel for a software company. I, personally, am looking for aardvark_ready software. Anyway, I got out the tape and a marker and took a stab (click image) at what these model/actors might really be ready to do.
previously:
The Fake Testimonial. Now with more Fake.

How do you market "The Other White Meat" to women?

(click ad to read copy)
You desperately and unconvincingly compare Pork to nail polish—"two handy-dandy things I can't live without." And you make the meat cuts look like painted fingernails! Cute! Also? You write the copy as a first-person testimonial—a fake first-person testimonial (ah, the specious faketestimonial, crutch of weak ad minds worldwide). Then, you place the ad in the June Martha Stewart Living and cross your fingers (ad emailed by Dina Shapiro).
previously in marketing to women: diamond brand promises powerful monogamy; Butch Cassidy sez: bang your husband, eat your greens; introducing Fuck-Me Camels; the simplest makeup ad ever; and the Kotex beaver.

NYC hospital's testimonial TV spot is riveting.

Testimonials are never done right. The person sucks on camera. Their words sound like what they are: bullshit scripted words. But this new commercial for New York-Presbyterian Hospital gave me pause. Heather's story is gripping, because Heather is real. Two other spots featuring NYC fireman Matthew and clinically-dead Joe are also pretty good. Nicole's spot, unfortunately, is terribly over-written.
Still, as a whole, the campaign is much better than the usual fake patient cancer ads, or even worse, these fake dead kids ads. Ad agency: Munn Rabôt, New York. Related: having some fun with Microsoft's fake testimonial ad.

She looks pretty good for a cancer sufferer, doesn't she?

(click image)
Ah yes. The Fake Patient. Look at the healthy glow. The neutral expression. Have you seen these ads in the New York Times and New York magazine, seemingly featuring portraits of Sloan-Kettering cancer patients? Probably some of you figured out these attractive—but not too attractive— people are just carefully-selected models, maybe some of you didn't, or didn't care. Usually, hospitals willl include a "model used for illustrative purposes only" disclaimer line in the ad. Not S-K. Pretty damn deceptive for an internationally recognized top cancer treatment center, don't you think? Well at least if any of the models ever do get the Big C, Sloan-Kettering will probably be the first place they call.

previously:
1. Welcome to the (fake) people_ready business.
2. The Fake Testimonial. Now with more Fake.

I believe that should be: Lies Well Disguised.

It's been bloated agency McCann Erickson's tagline since 19 fucking 12. They even got it trademarked before service industries were allowed to trademark words. So proud, they are, it's still on their website today (under About, then History). WHAT AN ABSOLUTE LOAD OF OLD AD GUY SHIT. "For everything else, there's Mastercard?" Yeah, tons of truthiness in that statement. And those fake ads for Microsoft—as honest as the day is long. Keep raising the bar, boys. The rest of us hucksters need a shining beacon of veracity to reach for.
previously:
1. Welcome to the (fake) people_ready business.
2. The Fake Testimonial. Now with more Fake.

I see (fake) dead people.

(click ads to read copy, via) These executions for the UK's St John Ambulance—a charity that teaches first aid—have been out for a few days, and have been universally gushed over by the taste-making ad blogs. Photographer Nadav Kander shot these fictional serene death portraits for London agency BBH. Well, they certainly take the fake testimonial to a new macabre place. I guess using real recent accident corpses was out of the question—a good make-up artist can work miracles, though. Won't someone please think of the (fake dead) children?!?

copyranter on ANIMAL NY: B of A brings the disingenuousness.

Using the tried and true fake testimonial strategy, Bank of America, headquartered in North Carolina, makes an especially lame attempt to show NYers that they get us. (link)

Lies Well Disguised, #9.

What is the lower form of advertising? That would be the Fake Testimonial. Today at Gawker.com, I explore a recent favorite example of this vile ad trick (link).
previous Lies Well Disguised:
8. AIDS ads make me so horny.7. Kenneth Cole. Heel.
6. Ad horror stories.
5. We are all made of Starbucks.
4. Deutsch & Binn: Perfect Douche Storm.
3. Unparalleled hyperbole of NYC real estate ads.
2. The bloody death of celebrity endorsements.
1. Advertising Week 2006.

This is why the world needs copywriters.

(click image) There should be a comma, not a period, after "good." Also, it's probably not a good idea to use the most hated person in America as a fake endorser. Let's look forward to more delis doing this. Via Seattle. Via Buzzfeed. Note: the world does not need copywriters. Previous noteworthy testimonial ads: Julian Assange (fake) • Amelia Earhart. (chain smoker) • and Bernie Ecclestone (big black eye).

Amelia Earhart chain-smoked her way across the North Atlantic.

(click ad) In honor of tomorrow's opening of Amelia (Hilary Swank?), here's a retro sponsorship coup for Lucky Strike which commemorated the 1928 "Friendship" flight (on which, she was merely a passenger). Four years later of course, she became the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic. The money testimonial quote (probably fake): "They were smoked continuously from Trepassey to Wales. I think nothing else helped lessen the strain for all of us." No Klonopin around then (image via). Previous retro Lucky Strike ads.