Advertising in the onion

In these latest years, a new wave of consumer products has been put on the market making outrageous claims that have been able to hoodwink society by using clever advertising and marketing. The Onion uses satire to mock the marketing tactics that are frequently used to swindle consumers. Strategies that The Onion uses include using hyperbolic consumer feedback, using big and scientific words and by giving scientific-sounding explanations. These strategies are specifically designed to make people see the silliness of outrageous claims.

To begin with, the article uses fake consumer feedback reports that exaggerate the product's uses. The first one, by a "Helen Kuhn," says that she twisted her ankle and makes a claim that the MagnaSoles cured her. The article pokes fun at how consumer reports given in advertisements often make outrageous claims that can be easily proven wrong but sound full of factual information. Any person with commonsense knows that a twisted ankle will heal itself over time, especially after a "few months," as Ms. Kuhn says. The article also ridicules the idea that consumers will be enticed if more than one person plugs the product, which is why another report is given by a "Geoff DeAngelis." He gives another quality of these "super soles" by offering that it helps him with his back problems. It's obvious these claims aren't true, especially when the first one by Helen Kuhn states that he had been wearing the soles for a few weeks when the article clearly states that the product had been released less than a week ago. The article ridicules how a buyer will overlook obvious inaccuracies when a product is endorsed by other, seemingly normal people.

Furthermore, the article uses big words to highlight the concept that words that a person may not understand fully influence the appeal of a product. Words such as "pseudoscience," which mean absolutely nothing, are used to show that consumers nowadays have no rational thought processes when buying new items on the market. Big words confuse the buyer and they are unable to realize that the advertiser is trying to make a faux product sound good. The article then uses made-up scientific words to mock how ads will sometimes use words that sound unique, like there is nothing else like it. The article does the same thing by adding a trademark symbol to the "ContourPoints™" feature. This is satirical because