Advertising claims.

At least in Puerto Vallarta, both beer and tequila were advertised as good for you and good for what ails you. It was fun to see those ads just after having read about Johnson & Johnson's announcement that they are introducing "straight talk" about risks into their advertising. I strongly suspect that the straight talk will pay dividends for them in sales, as well as brand image. A new study from Rodale Press shows that consumers are more likely to ask doctors about advertised drugs when they perceive that the risks are not hidden.

Just home from my R&R week of good-for-you tequila ads in Mexico, I visited a wonderful second-tier show at the Philadelphia Art Museum (where the fabulous Dali is, of course, getting center stage attention). The second-tier show is called "Quack, Quack Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera and Books." It's a great show for anyone interested in what consumers do and don't believe, full of lavish pronouncements, grandiose claims, cure-everything elixirs, and products that would look right at home in today's marketplace.

The Quack Quack exhibit reminded me of how much of ourselves and our immediate experiences we bring to advertising messages. A recent conversation with an exterminator about a mouse problem was probably why I was intrigued with the Quack Quack ads for Human Exterminating Bitters. My Mexican experience with the feel-good tequila ads made me especially receptive to ads for a cure-all called Vin Mancini, which was made from a mixture of Bordeaux and cocaine and was sold with endorsements of dozens of celebrities, all of whom probably felt fabulous after drinking it.

Those ads seemed honest, because drugs and alcohol do make people feel better (in the short run). They weren't so different from the Mexican ads claiming that you feel great when you drink the best Tequila (if you are actually going to test tequila claims, be sure to use the high-priced stuff made from blue agabe!) They weren't so different from the ads for homeopathic remedies to cure everything from aging joints and aching backs, to today's elixirs that contribute to weight loss or prolonged youth. They weren't so different from the ads for Viagra and all its competitors either.

Besides all the fun, there is a serious opportunity here for food and drug marketers: Next year is the centennial anniversary of the Pure Food & Drug Act, which was enacted in 1906. It's a great platform for consumer education, telling your quality and cold chain stories, or good old merchandising of pure food.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Happy Spring,