I play a lot on my cell phone. I am certain that most of you do too. One of the games I play is solitaire, I guess it’s not important what the game is for this entry in my blog, but the important part is that in between rounds I have to sit through a commercial for 30 seconds or so.
To me it’s not a big deal that I have to sit through advertisements to be able to play my game, it is free after all and the person who coded the game should get compensation somehow. What I dislike is misinformation, or misleading information.
Look at the two graphics above. “I worked out every day for a year and I lost 10 lbs…” and the next, “I’ve been doing Noom and I already lost 14 lbs!” Sounds great doesn’t it? WOW! It must really work! I’m going to pull out my credit card and get Noom, it has to work.
Except that the ad doesn’t say how long the person has been on Noom. Perhaps they’ve been on it for 2 week, 14 lbs in 2 weeks is a FANTASTIC weigh loss. Perhaps they’ve been doing Noom for a year, at which point 14 lbs isn’t so great, 1 lb a month isn’t such a good weight loss program.
If you’re a proponent of Noom, you’ll be saying something like, it’s not a weight loss program, it’s a lifestyle change. It uses psychology and some other stuff. Perhaps they have a person call you every morning at 5am to get you out of bed to work out.
I’m sure that maybe it works, but I really take issue with the ad not giving a time frame for when the person lost 14 lbs. Maybe they had a limb amputated, maybe they just gave birth? These are all ways of losing weight.
Think on this, there are lots of ads out there that will tell you the whole truth, even if it’s in illegible writing at the bottom of your TV, that says ‘Results not typical” or some other legalese. I would rather that than have someone spout off something that might be true, but doesn’t include all the information.
There’s another ad that keeps popping up, it’s for a word game, and it claims that just 10 minutes a day at playing this game will make you smarter. I’ve seen the same game claim that it’s the most relaxing game in the world. Where’s the proof? Have there been studies to prove it? I find it hard to believe these claims. Isn’t there supposed to be something about truth in advertising? I think that the people that are making these ads are just sitting in their ivory towers(or in isolation in their mansions) just spewing some sort of psycho-babble to convince people to buy products.
To the people of Noom, I actually was considering getting your app and giving it a try as I am trying to lose a fair chunk of weight, but with ads that are misleading I question your entire product/service.
I say it’s all bananas.