Why Can't the Pictures in Ads Be Real? Reality Versus the Commercials

As an average Consumer in America, today, I am so tired of the False Representations used in photos to sell products to the public.

Even in some of the hubs that I read, there are pictures attached to them that do not even vaguely reflect the actual content of the Hub itself.

And, as you all know, this goes on in advertisements for; Restaurants, Clothiers, Recipes, in reviews of business', in corporate suggestions for foods, in the Drug Industry, in the commercial health industry, and on and on.

This is a rampant problem that we, as the public, just seem to accept as being the norm and not something that we can try to change for the better.

From the fast food hamburger chains to the hole-in-the wall "Chinese" and other ethnic food stands across America; even to the diet plans for the overweight and to just about everyone in the retail sales world; what you see is not what you get.

Listed below are some examples of what I mean;

Food Chains:

These are the most evident retailers who make the maddest when I go to one of their establishments.

I mean, have you ever walked into a fast food chain restaurant and just ordered a Burger? I mean ,a nice one like the giant picture hanging over your head right behind the cashier.

And then, when you sat down and opened the box or bag, what you pulled out to eat was nothing like that picture that you can still see hanging over the counter.

The bun itself is usually crushed down to the thickness of a cracker, and nothing like the thick and enticing one in the picture. Why?

Well, it seems that everyone who touches the burger seems to want to have a death grip on it before it gets to you, for one thing.

For another, they have to stack other things into that same bag of food,and if your burger ends up on the bottom? Oh Well, gravity will take over!

The lettuce is probably hanging out the edge of the bun, and is invariably one, thin, limp, leaf of lettuce, and not the multiple leaves that you see in the picture..

What's with telling me that I get lettuce on my burger, showing me a picture of my ideal burger with at least 1/4 inch of lettuce leaves hanging out from the bun.

And when I open mine? It 's a single lonely leaf?

And, ignore the fact that the lettuce is probably the only truly nutritionally acceptable thing in the package, and is actually good for you.

So they just give you one slice?

The tomato. Well the tomato, by itself, is an insult to our intelligence.

You don't get fresh homegrown bright red tomatoes on fast food sandwiches, my friend.

You see, they buy millions of tomatoes from farms, often in other countries, around the world, that are harvested long before they ripen.

They are washed, boxed, and sprayed with gases to make them look relatively red, and then they are stored in refrigerated trailers for shipment and distribution to their food chains.

Once at the store, they are sliced to the thickness of a newspaper page and 1 to 2 of these slices are tossed on top of the lonely leaf of lettuce ...... for your enjoyment, of course.

The meat, or what they call meat, is that dark black hockey puck, lying morosely on the bottom half of the bun.

It has been cooked, somewhere, to a state of abuse that they are obviously embarrsssed by because they always cover it with all of the condiments;

The condiments? Oh yeah, the ketchup, the mustard, possibly the reconstituted onion, and sometimes a lonely, abused slice or two of pickle.

These tasty delights are applied haphazardly over the meat in measured squirts and random tosses by some pimple-faced teenager .

By the way, when you buy a "quarter pound" burger, what you get does not weigh a quarter pound.

Rather, somewhere, down some remote production line, right after the cow is slaughtered and its meat and fat is ground up and mixed with water, the meat (sometimes with a non-meat filler) is shaped by large automated machines into round or square or "natural shaped" patties.

Then, it is immediately measured on a production line to always be slightly more than 1/4 of a pound in weight.

Then the "Meat Pattie" is packaged, frozen, and shipped to the chain stores via the corporate distribution system. Not all are frozen, but most are.

At the chains, they are thawed and slapped onto the automated grill or whatever media they use and are cooked to a very well-done state ..... for your enjoyment, of course!

They leave no chances of the company being sued for making someone sick with half-cooked meat.

I haven't painted a very pretty picture of the world of fast food have I?

OK, you're probably laughing at me right now, but, honestly, did your last fast food burger look even remotely like the picture in their ads or on the wall of the restaurant.

I'm not a genius, but when I open my burger up and there it lies;less than 1/4 inch thick, noticeably smaller than the Bun it sits on, barely covered by minimal condiments, and then I glance up at the ad on the wall and that one is obviously closer to 1/2 in thick, hangs out over the edge of the Bun, and has condiments actually falling from the meat and bun; ..... folks, It Aint the same Burger.

And I'm tired of the deception.

Diet plans that advertise their wares are truly one of the most deceptive of the retailer niches, in my opinion.

First of all, just walk down the street, any street, in any city, and look at the people.

You see tall ones, short ones, fat ones and skinny ones. But you will rarely see that perfect body that dominant on the advertisements for Diet Plans and for Gym Memberships, walking down the street towards you.

Oh there are people that have those perfect bodies, but most of them are all busy, working in photo studios, having their perfect bodies photographed for those advertisements that you see.

And, if you were able to stop them and ask? They would just laugh and tell you that,

No, they do not use that diet plan, or No, they do not go to a gym, even. It was their job to be photographed for the ads, not use that Crap!

They are actually the exceptions in our population, that are, in turn, held up to us, the rest of the public, as some kind of ideal that we should all work to be like.

Those six-pack abs?

Well, the majority of the people that have these are usually in the age range of 18 to maybe 30.

They have next to no Body Fat, and they, again, are busy working out and having pictures taken of their bodies.

And, as I mentioned, they are a very small part of the total population.

Why did I say only up to the age of 30?

Because, in all probability, if they really are successful models, they end up partying and eventually fall out of shape and end up with the only modeling jobs available being Beer ads, fully clothed.

Anyone else is, in all probability, a rare exception.

What about the rest of us?

The Tall, Short, Fat, Skinny, blemished masses?

They want our money, they want our signatures on the dotted line .....But, they know, all too well, that we will never, ever look like those models in those cooked up pictures.

And, if you bring this up to them?

They smile and say; Oh, but you will be so much healthier than if you don't lose that extra weight or if you don't exercise.

Yeah, true, healthier is better, but you will still see those damned model's pictures on the diet plan package and on the walls of the Gym!

They know what sells! The impossibility of perfection!

Clothing stores are not as flagrant as other types of retailers but they are right up there in the false advertisement world.

You see, when I walk into a men's clothing store, they definitely do not lead me over to the "beautiful people" section. Nope, rather, it's the "I think you might look better in one of these" section.

And, off I go, with the salesman, to the land of dark and drab clothing.

Clothing that is usually made for people with Beer Bellies, short legs, long arms, big chests, etc.

You know, the regular people of the world.

The ones that might have healthy bodies, but not the ones that the cool clothes were cut for.

You see, those clothes were cut for the models in those pictures in their ads, not for the average person.

Those people, in the ads, just slip the cool clothes on and they fit perfectly.They are the right length, they fit around the waist, and across the back and chest.

The rest of us? the majority of us?

The rest of us, from the real world, well, we have to get the pants shortened or the waist taken in.

And we have to wear the shirt and jacket either tight across the back or chest, or just always buy them too large so that they will fit in these areas.

We are the average person, and we vary in size and shape considerably.

No matter, they, the manufacturers, design and cut the material for their clothes to fit those perfect little skinny, short models.

The rest of us?

Well, their computers modify the automated cloth cuttings slightly, and place labels on these finished products that say; "loose fit", "magic stretch", "for the full-bodied", and other phrases that really mean "for the rest of you odd shaped people".

And, one other thing that really burns me about buying clothing today, as an average American.

EVERYBODY is supposed to wear even length slacks.

I constantly look through the piles of slacks at the major retailers.

You could purchase slacks in even lengths from 26 to 42. in even lengths only.

No one is supposed to have an inseam that is an odd number?

Essentially, the men's slack manufacturers are saying; Half of you, the John Q. Publics, can wear the right length slacks, the even length ones.

As to the rest of us? well, you can wear our slacks either too short or too long. We really don't care!

They would rather manage their inventory than give us the right sized pants.

In the world of Retail advertising the blatant use of false advertising, from food ads, clothing ads and even Diet Plan Ads have gilded the American Public's expectations to the point that they accept the fact that there is no real truth in advertising anymore.

They just continue to accept the falsehoods and and mediocre products shoved at them as the norm..

And more dangerously, Drug Use and Application ads, is so bad that we, the public, are constantly forced to purchase products that come no where near our expectations.

by Don Bobbitt