23 Common Marketing Ploys That Are Nonsense

The claim "they can't advertise that or else they could get sued" is a wicker shield at best. Not only do companies try it all the time, but some of them have succeeded and continue to sell you products chock full of false information. Capitalism isn't exactly a breeding ground for honesty, or honor, or good-faith actors. Branding is a devious beast. Who could forget the Mad Men pilot, where Don Draper advises the greedy demon executives of the Lucky Strike tobacco company to ignore the “cigarettes cause cancer” research and simply tell millions of passive TV watchers that the cigarettes are “toasted?” Well, that kind of nefarious behavior happens in real life all the time. A depressing amount of time. Like with real companies that we've probably all patronized in the past week.

We asked our readers to bring us the worst offenders and gave $200 to the winner ...