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.
#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.
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.
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57points
#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.
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.
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57points
#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.
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.
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49points
#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.
Now it's so deeply ingrained in our culture I cannot imagine it ever having been normal for women to have leg hair.
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49points
#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.
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.
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47points
#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.
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45points
#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.
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43points
#30
Halitosis was basically invented by Listerine. Not to say bad breath didn't exist. But it was just bad breath.
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28points
