- Methyl Benzoate: Check
- Undecanal: Got it
- Trans-4-Decen-1: Everybody should have some o’ ‘dat.
Here is a lesson in highly manipulative marketing that you should avoid deploying. In a recent ad for Air-Wick, those stinky oil containers you plug into the wall to make your house smell better, they espoused the virtues of nature.
The voiceover goes something like this “Since 2009, we’ve lost 33 million acres of wildflower and grassland habitat in the Great Plains; that’s half the size of Colorado“.
So Air Wick Scented Oils is partnering with the World Wildlife Fund to help reseed 1 billion square feet of wildflower habitat “one square foot at a time”
Feeling all warm and fuzzy thinking the Air Wick is doing good for the environment?
Yeah, think again.
Air Wick goes to great extremes to convince consumers that its’ products are “natural”. Its’ packaging , in big bold font proclaims “contains natural Essential Oils, nothing but the ingredients you need“.
Last time I checked, I do not need Gamma-Undecalactone. Nor is there an FDA bulletin suggesting Ethylphenyl is part of a healthy breakfast.
These products (Fabreeze included) are toxic. Fabreeze, by the way is one molecule off from Anti-Freeze.
In my carpet cleaning business, a home owner once put her parrot in the bathroom while we were cleaning. There was a Glade Plug-In belching out its’ “Cherry Blossom” scented fumes. in an outlet in the bathroom.
The bird was dead in 3 hours.
This ad is like trying to put lipstick on a pig. At the end of the day, you still have a pig, albeit with red lips.
What’s a Cherry Blossom Scented Pig with lipstick have to do with your business?
EVERYTHING!
This type of marketing is manipulative and borderline illegal. You must steer clear of being enticed by this type of wily contrived marketing.
If you are selling glop, and you don’t have one scintilla of nature in it, do not call it natural.
You are just lying to your clients and prospects.
This goes for copywriters (who may be seduced by the dark side of marketing), home service businesses, child care centers and medical professionals.
Embellishment is fine. Heck I do it. But out and out lies? Don’t do it.
