ITV/Channel 4/Channel 5
In many ways the Flora Buttery advert banned by the Advertising Standards Authority is one of the less offensive of its kind. Brand ambassador Gary Rhodes sets up in a shopping centre and proceeds to bother passing salt of the earths with buttered crumpets, half with butter substitute Flora Buttery and half with Lurpak Lighter Spreadable and finds that more people prefer the taste of Flora Buttery. A look at the details of the study reveals that of 200 people 48% preferred Flora, 45% preferred Lurpak with 7% expressing no preference. That’s a statistically insignificant 3% advantage, a figure that could quite easily have occurred by chance or say the brand ambassador smiling or otherwise silently indicating a preference as he handed the Flora buttered crumpet to punters. Science insists on double-blind studies for a reason.
So Flora get their bullshit ad pulled and look like the twats they are – no big deal. But the call to higher authority, in this case science is an ever-growing feature of modern advertising. Statistics, men in lab coats and clipboards are thrown into the mix to give an appearance of science. It sells and these slimeballs know that and find ways of cleverly expressing their laughably unscientific studies to avoid censure. who among the jaded viewer populace could be bothered to check things further? We live in a country where Gillian McKeith can get a TV show based on her non-existent scientific credentials.
Heaven forbid anyone find out that churned buttermilk is always going to taste pretty much the same no matter who’s stamp is on it.
Aerial Telly forever. Hippy pseudoscience scum never.