8 Ways Companies Use Pseudoscience To Sell You Stuff
4. Create A Problem That Isnt There ... Now With Added With Science
True story: We all know a guy who didn't clean his kitchen with a product that kills 99.9% of bacteria, and he's dead now.
The first thing that should really leap into your head when an advert says something like "your chopping board harbours more bacteria than your toilet seat" is wow, toilets seats are clean.
It's a classic of the advertising world: create a problem and then solve it with your product. One of the best ways to do this is to use "science".
Mouthwash moguls Listerine famously promoted the idea that bad breath was a medical condition and a big problem, even popularising the medical term "halitosis" in their adverts. This is despite the fact that there has not been a single documented medical case of mouthwash successfully curing chronic halitosis.
Luckily for the human race, Listerine were on hand with a solution and that, ladies and gents, is how mouthwash went from nonexistent to a bathroom staple in a decade.