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30 Myths That Were Widely Circulated Because Companies Were Good At Lying About Their Products
Businesses need to stand out if they want to sell something. Some create the best product they possibly can, some offer unbeatable prices, and others try to compete by telling stories. However, when the primary purpose of these stories is to get customers to open their wallets, not all are rooted in reality. In fact, there's a whole thread on Reddit where people share what they believe to be the biggest myths companies have told the world—slick, compelling, but ultimately hollow.
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#1
Low fat products which we were told was good for you because fat is bad; turned out it was b******t because the low fat products had more sugar in it to compensate for taste.
More sugar/carbs is the real cause of many diseases we have.
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#2
The "tradition" of diamond engagement rings by the De Beers company.
Petra Peitsch 7 months ago (edited)
Diamonds are not rare, at all. The cruelty behind mining them, is disgusting. If you are in them, buy the lab-grown ones. Only a close, professional inspection can tell the difference, and they are much cheaper as the "real" ones, stained with suffering and blood.
#3
Putting some holes in a cardboard box for a Pet Rock to breathe was one of the most inspired advertising ploys ever. Freaking brilliant.
Stephanie Did It 7 months ago
I domesticated a wild cotton ball once, but couldn't breed the darn thing!
#4
"Women love the smell of an entire can of Axe body spray!"
Which was believed by every teenage boy for years.
#5
Clover used to be an intentional part of the American lawn prior to WW2. It thrives in poor soil, fixes its own nitrogen and can survive drought conditions and was deliberately added to assist with the growth of the surrounding grass.
Once weed k**ler came to market post WW2, it wasn’t long before chemical companies successfully re-branded clover as a weed. Clover is a broad leaf plant and was unintentionally k**led alongside the other “unfavorable weeds” so it was successfully removed from the picturesque perfect American lawn by chemical companies.
#6
Kellogg’s basically inventing a food pyramid to convince the public to eat their garbage for breakfast.
That s****y myth persisted for decades.
Hippopotamuses 7 months ago
I've switched to unsweetened bran. It's sounds like the breakfast equivalent of a hair shirt, but once you get used to the lack of sweetness, it's not too bad.
#7
That your teeth are supposed to be #ffffff white.
StrangeOne 7 months ago
Not to mention whitening products can be more harmful to your teeth with long term use, and for some people, it can cause gum irritations and allergies.
#8
All cosmetics company claiming male and female need a different soap/shampoo/razor...
Lately some even tried to apply the gendered marketing to yogurt, toothpaste, handkerchief or pens.
#9
The inventors of OxyContin tried to convince the public that it was a addictive-free version of oxycodone. They blatantly lied and were sued for like $500 mil a while back.
SouthernGal 7 months ago
The Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma are disgusting. I wish they had been criminally prosecuted and convicted. “Dope Sick” is a well done show about all of this.
#10
That global warming is not real - because regulations hurt the bottom line of coal and oil industry.
#11
I hear soda companies switched from glass to plastic as a cost saving measure, claiming they were more convenient as you can just throw them away rather than bringing the bottles back for cleaning and refilling. They then blamed consumers for all the additional plastic trash.
#12
The amount of toothpaste you use when brushing. You don't have to fill the bristles of the toothbrush. Only pea-sized is needed. Commercials shows it more than needed so they can sell more products.
Hippopotamuses 7 months ago
My favourite about these commercials (where I live, at least), is that they are usually presented by actors wearing white coats in laboratory settings.
#13
This isn’t so much a myth to sell products but to divert blame.
Anti Littering campaigns were started by large corporations that polluted heavily in order to shift blame away from them to the individual for keeping the planet clean. Don’t get me wrong people who litter are scumbags, but no one human could produce as much pollution as a factory, let alone an entire industry.
Same thing goes for water conversation. A single family uses fractions of a percent of water compared to what industry uses.
When you see blame for something shift to individuals, take a moment and look at the broader picture of who the major perpetrators are. Areas to look at, d***s(pharmaceutical industry), water usage, pollution, green house gases, waste in general. All are things we as individuals do contribute to in someway but that is so small compared to what is actually happening and what companies are doing
This is a little disjointed. On mobile. Can clarify later.
Mari 7 months ago (edited)
We are sorting waste, make sure we don't use harmful poducts or plastic. The industry still is using billions tons of it. We avoid taking the plane or the car but the politicians and rich people still have their private jets. I continue to do my best being less polluting.
#14
I did some research on why KFC is THE food to eat for Christmas in Japan and found this:
According to brand legend, there were some American tourists in Japan during the Christmas holidays back in the 70s. When they couldn't find roast turkey for their holiday meal, they got the next best thing - a bucket of KFC fried chicken.
A manager at the local store saw it, told some higher-ups, and eventually the marketing team started advertising it as a Christmas tradition to the point that it actually became such a popular tradition you now have to reserve your chicken weeks in advance.
Hippopotamuses 7 months ago
This is probably one of the weirdest cultural phenomena in a country already full of weird phenomena.
#15
"water memory" to sell homeopathy products.
Jill Payne 7 months ago
Homeopathy is the biggest scam, it is a dilution of a dilution until you can't even detect whatever farce "cure" was supposed to be in the bottle.
#16
The slogan 'More Doctors Smoke Camels', implying that Camel cigarettes were some sort of 'healthy' cigarette recommended by doctors.
#18
Alka-Seltzer increased sales by changing the recommended dose to two tablets instead of one. The famous “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” marketing campaign was only to increase sales, not based on real medical advice.
Mel in Georgia 7 months ago
As a former advertising copywriter, this is freaking brilliant. Evil, but brilliant.
#19
Super late to the game, but Ivory soap. "So pure it floats". They whip air into the mixture, it has nothing to do with purity.
Mel in Georgia 7 months ago
Anyone remember the spooky joke about an eerie voice in the dark crying, "It floats... It floats... It floats...." WHAT FLOATS?? " "Ivory soap!"
#20
That oranges are loaded with Vitamin C. There's more Vitamin C in a bell pepper than in an orange.
#21
Spinach is not especially high in iron.
The story goes that way back in 1870 a researcher made a mistake with a decimal point and accidentally credited spinach with 10 times the iron content it actually had. The mistake was corrected relatively quickly but to this day spinach producers still like to push their product based on its iron content despite the fact that if you compare the actual numbers spinach is middle of the road among leafy greens on iron.
#22
Valentine's Day. They all colluded to invent the ridiculous holiday to sucker the men into spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on that specific day.
Then they had to gall to guilt trip the single people into feeling like s**t on that day and so invented the buy yourself flowers/something nice on valentine's day myth even if you are single.
#24
Anything Edward Bernays was involved in. Just a few off the top of my head.
Making bacon a breakfast food to help the pork industry sell more.
Making green the 'in' shade for a particular fashion season to get people to buy a particular brand of cigarettes
The food pyramid
Any product that mentions 'the association of something or other recommended.' These are what's known as a front group and are normally set up by the marketing campaign so they can claim some sort of professional-sounding endorsement
The man is a walking history of how gullible and easily led the average consumer is. They don't even refer to you in human terms in that industry. You're a consumer or a unit. Like f*****g cattle.
#25
Razor companies ran ad campaigns to get the public to see women's leg and underarm hair as unhygenic and gross so they could sell razors to women, too.
Now it's so deeply ingrained in our culture I cannot imagine it ever having been normal for women to have leg hair.
StrangeOne 7 months ago
Hair removal has been around for millennias, though. But I guess it's been more of a upper class, royalty priority. I don't like how body hair on women is portrayed. It's gotten so disturbing that adults are now giving little girls ideas that they need to start shaving before they're a teenager so they don't get bullied. There was a segment on the 'The Social' recently about that very topic involving a girl being allowed laser hair removal for some "excessive" hair around her face. Just so unnecessary. Then on one of the Teen Mom shows, one of the moms, Amber, and the step-mom, on camera, showed her daughter how to shave her legs. This was all on camera, on a freakin' reality TV show. Leah, the daughter, seemed okay with it, but I don't think she really understood the magnitude, nor had actual consent for herself. She's basically been on that show since birth. But I digress.
#26
So, I dunno if anybody knows this...
Big Tobacco Companies have their hand in more than just cigs causing cancer. The reason horrible cancer causing flame retardants existed in almost all foam inside furniture for decades was because of these companies. In the 1970s the government was trying to force Big Tobacco to make the self-extinguishing cigarette, because it was the main cause of household fires at the time. People falling asleep with a cig in their hand, you get the picture. Well, Big Tobacco made a bunch of s**ttilly conducted research, as well as spread propaganda for years that it wasn't the cig, which they didn't want to change at all, but that furniture is poorly insulated and catches fire easily. So, skip to about 1990, and people start realizing all these carcinogens are in breast milk, and huge PPT/PPM counts of bad s**t in humans, caused mainly by people living with this degrading flame retardant coated foam. Fire fighters cancer rates also skyrocketed because of this. Smoke death due to the fire retardant burning also spiked. It took something like 10 years or so for a s**t load of lawyers and legislators to finally get the law changed in California, the last state requiring flame retardant coated foam, and even then it's still being battled because the chemical companies that sold the flame retardant make so much money off it. It's a much deeper and richer story but I don't wanna go that far.
tl;dr the reason carcinogenic chemicals existed in all foam padded furniture was that Big Tobacco didn't want to admit that cigarettes cause fires.
#27
Nutella told people their products were a healthy alternative.
#28
That beer will spoil if it goes from cold to hot. Coors started this because they had refrigerated trucks and pushed that always cold thing. In reality most beer is going from cold to hot multiple times while being shipped out. The real enemy of beer is light and time.
#29
Bottled water companies "By the time you feel thirsty, it is too late" OK then how many people have died from drinking to thirst? The myth is so pervasive that there will be people saying I am wrong.
Vinny DaPooh 7 months ago
Depends on how you interpret this. It's true that it's not life or death when you first feel thirsty but if you're thirsty you're already dehydrated is also the truth.
#30
Halitosis was basically invented by Listerine. Not to say bad breath didn't exist. But it was just bad breath.
Savannah greenleaf 7 months ago
Do not quote me but wasn't listerene's original purpose to sanitize and clean floor? That product has been on the market a long time.
#31
GMOs being bad for you. Not only is it ridiculous, marketers take advantage of it all the time. I see poorly labeled non gmo foods everywhere. Buying non GMO strawberries? Yes you are, since gmo strawberries don't exist. There are only 10 gmo plants out there and squash, soybeans, corn, papaya, sugar beets, canola, potatoes, and Apples are the only ones you'll run into at the food store. Not that there harmful in anyway, they just involve scary science made up by people who think the earth is round!
Mel in Georgia 7 months ago
Had a sister-in-law who wouldn't use a microwave because it "radiates" things. Like she thought it was radioactive or something. GMO technology is amazing. It can make foods healthier, need less herbicides and insecticides, be drought resistant ... But no, the crazies think it will make killer tomatoes.
#32
Drinking Orange Juice is part of a well balanced breakfast. Nope. It's just a bunch of sugar.
Huddo's sister 7 months ago
You can buy no added sugar juice and not all sugar is bad, as long as it's in moderation. Having it for breakfast is fine if you aren't also having waffles or sugary cereal etc. I don't think juice for breakfast is generally a big thing in Australia (not that I ever remember). I think it's just as part of hotel/motel breakfasts (are they the continental ones?) that I saw it. We were only allowed one glass of juice a day when I was a kid, to limit sugar and because it was cheaper, and I usually had it with my dinner. Milk is more of breakfast drink for me (until I was old enough to drink tea).
#33
The colorful flowers in your yard are actually terrible weeds. Spray toxic chemicals on your property weekly!
Boo 7 months ago (edited)
Never going to happen on my watch! We have lots of dandelions, buttercups and daisies in our lawn and we don't mow it until after the the other flowers in beds and fruit bushes and trees start to produce their flowers to feed the bees and butterflies. It's their first feed of the year and I'm not going to be the person to destroy it for them!
#34
Big Milk hyperbolised the amount of dairy that people need for the Food Pyramid to sell more dairy.
#35
That watching TV without a light on will hurt your eyes. Very much made by GE because they were worried people would buy fewer light bulbs...
StrangeOne 7 months ago (edited)
Wasn't this a big worry by parents? If I just had a reading lamp on my mom would think it's not bright enough and my eyes would get wrecked if I wasn't reading with the light of the blazing sun. Same with watching TV in the dark and sitting to close to the screen.
#36
KerryGold butter originally was just a standard butter that happened to be made in Ireland. They released a marketing campaign about how you shouldn't cook with KerryGold because it was a fancier high quality butter. It ended up working and international sales skyrocketed. So they used the money to actually improve their product so that it would be as it is today a fancier high quality butter.
Mel in Georgia 7 months ago
It worked - that's what we buy, and it is better than typical American butter.
#37
Dark colored diamonds were once gems that were basically thrown away by mining companies. They were not as shiny and enticing to customers as the light colored diamonds.
At some point a company came up with the idea to rebrand these cheap, crappy diamonds as something desirable. Suddenly these muddy “chocolate” diamonds were born and they have since grown into a huge hit. Jewelry companies now make a ton of money from once worthless diamonds.
StrangeOne 7 months ago
The value of gems is suggestive as to how much worthy people believe them to be. There have been peoples throughout history who would look at gold or a diamond and think of it as pretty but not something that would make them rich.
#38
My grandpa used to tell me the story of how he was friends with the guy who created the beverage "Talking Rain". The sparkling water became very popular in the 90's and came in a bottle with the story of how the native people of the area found a bubbling spring that seemed to talk as rain fell into it or something. This magical water became the source for Talking Rain. But that was all of course just a lie the guy made up to sell carbonated tap water to idiots.
Tim Fawcett 7 months ago
Next you will be telling me Um Bongo isn't really drunk in the Congo!
#39
That lead in gasoline was safe
Lyone Fein 7 months ago
Did any company actually say this? I think it was more an issue of evolving comprehension. There used to be lead in paint, asbestos in ceilings, etc……because we just didn’t know the connections between these materials and diseases. Same with saccharine as a sugar substitute.
#40
Skecher shape ups made your a*s more tone and bigger.
Savannah greenleaf 7 months ago
Well not if you wear them sitting on the couch watching TV. I wore mine to work and loved them.
#41
It's probably an urban legend, as I can't find a source for it online, but I remember reading about a company that sold canned tuna advertising its product as being "guaranteed not to turn black in the can!" Of course, tuna would never turn black in the can, but by saying it won't, it implied that competing brands _did_ sell tuna that turned black in the can.
#42
Christmas is red so please buy coca cola.
Another Panda 7 months ago
This is true. Coca Cola created a santa claus in red to influence sales. Prior to this, St Nick’s garb was traditionally green.
#43
Well I wouldn't quite call it a myth, but Tang (a company that sold fruit flavored drinks) is responsible for the mispronunciation of the word orangutan thanks to them using an orangutan as their mascot. Now many people incorrectly pronounce it as orangu-tang, which I guess counts as free product placement for them.
#44
Highly expensive short digital cables such as HDMI will make your music sound better. It's literally just 1s and 0s being transmitted so if there is a loss of data transmission in audio you will get a drop out - you cannot hear the difference between a $5 and $200 HDMI cable.
Long cables on the other hand do need to be high quality or else they will break more easily, especially in the AV industry where cables are being connected and disconnected multiple times a day, although a lot of companies now use fibre or HDSDI for cabling. You don't need a $200+ 1m HDMI cable, a $5 HDMI cable will do the trick if it's being plugged in once and left.
In general a lot of the audiophile industry is build on myths, especially the example I mentioned above. Amps, speakers, processors etc are not a myth as quality products will last longer and sound better, but a lot of it is to sell you more expensive products.
Christos Arvanitis 7 months ago
Monster was big on this. It makes no sense for digital stuff because, well, digital. It was valid back in the day for analog sound systems.
#45
That vitamin water is healthy.
Wintermute 7 months ago
And when they were sued they claimed that no one should have ever assumed that something called Vitamin Water was healthy. And the court$ agreed.
#46
Ooh! I just read about this in a book a couple months ago. The man who invented tooth paste deliberately put in mint and other flavors along with a chemical that causes your gums to tingle so that when you wake up in the morning you crave the mint & the tingling feeling on your gums. That is why you're mouth feels atrocious if you do not brush every morning. Not a myth per se, but they sold a product that perpetuated itself forward as people used it more and more.
Stephanie Did It 7 months ago
That mint or spearmint flavor is exactly why I hate toothpaste, because to me, it burns. As a kid I always rushed through brushing. Can't handle hot or spicy foods either.
#47
Do carrots count as a product not from a company? The whole eyesight thing during WWII to present day.
Michelle C 7 months ago (edited)
This is partially true because carrots are high in beta carotene, lutein, and vitamin A.
#48
Subway convinced everyone that eating a whole loaf of bread in 1 sitting is healthy.
Stephanie Did It 7 months ago
There were subs, hero sandwiches, hoagies and po'boys (USA terms for the same thing) way before the Subway franchise. And technically, any unsliced soft roll is a small loaf of bread.
#49
Montgomery Ward commissioned the story of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer to make the coloring books they were giving away cheaper.
#50
Dockers invented *Business Casual* to sell more khaki slacks and help get men out of wearing suits to work as much.
StrangeOne 7 months ago
I don't see this as a bad thing. Business casual is more affordable than buying a suit, and I'm sure more comfortable. Don't know what a tie feels like, but sometimes it looks like their neck is spilling out from their stiffened collars and tight ties. I don't see how ties make anyone do their jobs any better.
#51
Jiffy-Lube. Decided that everyone needs to change their oil every 3,000 miles or your vehicle would explode.
Savannah greenleaf 7 months ago
Read the owners manual that comes with the vehicle. All of the ones I have looked myself said 5,000.
#52
Jay walking was invented so cars could have a right of way.
StrangeOne 7 months ago (edited)
It's initially a slur, but the laws for pedestrian and driver safety are there to make us more safe.
#53
I think I heard many companies such as Baron's that sell test prep exam make it so standardized testing is common in the US and necessary.
Huddo's sister 7 months ago
I think they just would have capitalised on something that was already considered necessary. We have a standardised test in Australia but it's not in order to get into college, it's to rank schools and allocate funding. No prep exams exist, though teachers get given a rough idea of what will be tested, so they end up 'teaching to the test' and I hate it.
#54
Pringles’ “Once you pop, you can’t stop” ad campaign has convinced countless people that they are apparently justifiably helpless to not eat an entire can in one sitting.
Stephanie Did It 7 months ago
Nah, Lay's Potato Chips "Bet you can't eat just one" campaign came way before that.
#55
The one that "Chewing gum is good for your teeth". I'm looking at you, Trident.
Stephanie Did It 7 months ago
Chewing gum generates more saliva, and saliva is good for your teeth & gums
What do you think ?
Carl Roberts 7 months ago
BP, please stop posting "facts" from Reddit. Many of these are just made up bullspit from clueless Redditors who think they're smart
Ace 7 months ago
It seems like nobody does even the slightest amount of fact-checking before posting on these sort of threads, (and not just on Reddit). Without actually counting them, I'd guess that a good half or more of these are factually incorrect and probably half of the remainder are based on simple misunderstandings by GenZ posters who don't seem to have the foggiest notion of history, Apart from those, the rest are just people repeating stuff that's trendy and well-known.
Forrest Grump 7 months ago
Bored Panda Staff: "Let's repost this list every week. It is easier than finding new content. And there are gullible people who will pay for a Premium subscription regardless of what we post."
Chewie Baron 7 months ago (edited)
Murray Walker, who is better known as the voice of Motorsport, especially Formula 1 mainly on the BBC and then briefly on ITV, used to work in advertising after World War II (he was a tank commander). One of his most famous slogans which many Brits will still remember even though they’re known as Starburst now is “Opal Fruits! Made to make your mother water!”.
Carl Roberts 7 months ago
BP, please stop posting "facts" from Reddit. Many of these are just made up bullspit from clueless Redditors who think they're smart
Ace 7 months ago
It seems like nobody does even the slightest amount of fact-checking before posting on these sort of threads, (and not just on Reddit). Without actually counting them, I'd guess that a good half or more of these are factually incorrect and probably half of the remainder are based on simple misunderstandings by GenZ posters who don't seem to have the foggiest notion of history, Apart from those, the rest are just people repeating stuff that's trendy and well-known.
Forrest Grump 7 months ago
Bored Panda Staff: "Let's repost this list every week. It is easier than finding new content. And there are gullible people who will pay for a Premium subscription regardless of what we post."
Chewie Baron 7 months ago (edited)
Murray Walker, who is better known as the voice of Motorsport, especially Formula 1 mainly on the BBC and then briefly on ITV, used to work in advertising after World War II (he was a tank commander). One of his most famous slogans which many Brits will still remember even though they’re known as Starburst now is “Opal Fruits! Made to make your mother water!”.
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