Weasel Words

Weasel words are used all throughout advertisements; this technique is used to trick consumers into believing that the advertisement can solve something, such as cold medicine will “relieve all your cold like symptoms”. I agree with William Lutz that weasel words are greatly used in advertisements, but I don’t believe that it is a negative thing to do. When consumers see the commercial for the cold medicine, they “believe” that the medicine will really work, this is exactly what advertisers want to happen, they are selling a product. An example I thought of while reading is the Febreze commercial. The advertisement states that a “dual action mist” was added to the bottle of Febreze and now it can “find and eliminate odors”. In the advertisement it never says what odors it will eliminate or how this newly added “dual action mist” improves the quality of the odor elimination. Consumers recognize that Febreze is now killing more odors, so they go out and buy it. I don’t believe that there is a way for anyone to monitor weasel words in advertisements because it has become so popular in advertising agencies. These words pull in the consumer and force them to buy the product. This is not a pessimistic way to market a product but a rather smart tactic.

-Courtney Puckett