Great Pot Noodle Viral, spoofing the much-hyped Guinness Tipping Point ad:

One of my pet hates is the pseudo-science that’s currently en vogue in health & beauty advertising, (anyone for boswelox, relaxaderm or bifidus regularis?) - it’s lazy, it’s misleading, and it’s frankly utter bollocks. Or utter boswelox, if you prefer.

So I was immensely pleased to discover the fabulous Sense about Science, an independent organisation which tries to promote good science and evidence to the public, and respond to all any misrepresentation of science and scientific evidence on issues that matter. So in general a fantastic bullshit detector.

I particularly enjoyed their review of celebrities and science, which highlights the utterly non-scientific and spurious (yes, you guessed it…) bollocks that the likes of Gillian McKeith, Stella McCartney and Sarah Beeny came out with in the name of science in 2007. I’ve a specially deep loathing for the faecally-obsessed McKeith (and highly recommend Dr Ben Goldacre’s fabulous Bad Science take-down of the poo princess herself - genius!), but in general it’s a brilliant overview of the kind of crap that’s passed off in the name of science these days.

[ Confession: despite knowing that its claims were total crap, and despite knowing that it was no different to every magical skin lotion and potion I’ve ever bought thinking it might just change my life, only to find that funnily enough it made sod-all difference, I might have bought the evil boswelox cream, just to give it a whirl. I am such a sucker. ]

My personal favourite will probably always be the official Bayer ad for Heroin, however the below ads for Camels and 7-Up have to come a close second:

It’s always remarkable to reflect on advertising before the days of tobacco or HFSS rulings, but it’s still amazing to see quite what claims brands were able to make of their products - and what it was felt would persuade consumers to buy said products.

The Camels ad in particular reminds me of the Fry & Laurie ‘Dr Tobacco’ sketch whereby an incredulous patient is stunned to be prescribed cigarettes by his doctor - yet the truth really was stranger than fiction!

Which does of course beg the question - which of today’s ads are we going to look back at with utter astonishment, stunned at the crazy claims we used to sell products?

[ More weird and wonderful old ads at Oddee ]