A new form of advertising evil I just noticed today.

[Berry Cool]

OK, so we're all familiar with those crappy ads that appear on practically every Web site you visit, right? Including ones that are supposed to be selling miraculous weight-loss products? Especially ones that, say, Rachael Ray supposedly used to lose lots of pounds?

Well, today for the first time I saw one disguised to look like a "news story amongst other news stories" on a page. And one of those news stories was, supposedly, about the health care bill. But there is no story about the health care bill...just a headline and subheadline that are definitely wingnut-oriented.

What I mean is this: It was on the page to my Web mail. It's a white rectangle on top of white (you have to look carefully to see it's all of a piece; anywhere you click on the rectangle will take you to the ad). The rectangle has this text on it:

Mom loses 47 pounds
in 1 month.

Analysis: Is this groundbreaking diet the secret to cutting
your gut? Learn how women everywhere are looking great
later in life.

That is followed by a tiny picture of what looks like someone standing up at a town hall meeting and this headline, smaller:

Obama's Healthcare
Nightmare

Tempers rise as consumers fear
the consequence of losing their doctors.

(I kid you not. That is exactly what it says. It is a headline in an advertisement, masquerading as a news story...but what kind of news story? Obviously a Fixed News type of news story.)

This is followed by the following:

--Emails from users flood in about diet success
--Truth about weight loss gains momentum

At the bottom, there's a "READ MORE" with a >> to click.

Clicking on the READ MORE, or anyplace else--including the "Obama's Healthcare Nightmare" portion of the thing--takes you to the same ad: a testimonial about "Meg's Rachael Ray Diet," designed to look like a blog, complete with lots of "comments" at the bottom from the supposedly curious/interested/satisfied and "responses" from "Meg," another "just-a-mom" who supposedly discovered the magical key to losing tons of weight (acai berry and colon cleansing...yawn).

OK, so obviously it's your typical online advertising crap. But what's really insidious about THIS particular online advertising crap is that PART of it is disguised as a news headline. A news headline about a supposedly real story about "Obama's healthcare nightmare" which is causing "tempers" to "rise" "as consumers fear the consequence of losing their doctors."

In short, the fake headline presents, as fact, that people will lose their doctors under an Obama health care plan. It capitalizes on the town-hall teabagging protests, and presents them as real-world responses to a FACT about an Obama health care plan, in order to draw attention to an advertisement for sleazy weight-loss products.

To me, this is a new low in advertising. A brand-new hitting of the bottom of the barrel.

I can only assume whoever is trying to peddle this acai berry and colon cleansing garbage is a right winger. Because, yeah, maybe they're figuring only right wingers would be dumb enough to buy this stuff so you have to use what will attract them, but they're also telling lies about something that has nothing whatsoever to do with their product, just so they can attract attention to their product.

I just feel like going and banging my head against a wall now.

[Irreverend IX]

1. The entire ad was probably paid for by the insurance cos.

They sneak the healthcare thing into diet ads because they know diet ads get people's attention.