The Edutainer!

Friday, September 15, 2006

I was at home consuming mass quantities of media and remembering my assignment of searching out blatant propaganda when Dateline NBC happened to be doing a piece on such a matter. NBC made up a fictional product called Moisturol, a pseudo skin moisturiser pill. The plan was to see if anyone would promote, endorse, and buy this product without any scientific testing documentation. First of all, these "pills" were capsules of, get this, Nestle Quik. Not only did a company take a contract to produce an infomercial, hire actor to testify for the product, but they even got a dermatologist to endorse the pills, all while telling them "We haven't any scientific documentation of its worth." As a matter of fact, the only testing NBC did was to make sure the cocoa in the sweetener did NOT produce any accidental results. The company produced the infomercial ($140,000), the actors acted ($50.00 each), and the doctor endorsed ($5,000). Yes, the dermatologist sold her reputation for only five thousand dollars. Long story short, trash products like these would rake in TEN million dollars before the government would catch up to them, fine them TWO million and not allow them to sell Skin care products anymore. I see an EIGHT million dollar profit in six months and a new buisness venture in weight loss pills. This industry releases 700,000 of these infomercials a year. Propa-freakin'-ganda!

2 Comments:

  • Interesting story! I can see where we should fault the dermatologist for giving her expert opinion without checking any facts, but should we really hold actors to the same standards? Should we expect them to personally understand or in some way verify the credibility of a product in a commercial that someone hired them to act in?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9/19/2006 2:59 PM  

  • I absolutley agree on the not placing blame upon the actors. Hey, work is work. The producers of the infomercial commit the foul. The fact that they would take on the organizing, and production of the project with full disclosure of not having proper testing and proof of a valid product infuriates me. The doctor on the other hand surprises me, in gambling her career at a fraction of her salary value.

    By Blogger Jeff Macias, at 9/20/2006 11:37 PM  

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