As a person who has a marketing degree from college (which was way before the internet and social media marketing – I might as well say that I have a degree in Latin which would probably be more useful at this point), I should have known all about the word “puffery”, but the official legal term, “puffery” is honestly something that I just learned about last week. I suppose that most of marketing is puffery, so a marketing degree might as well be a degree in puffery. I have a B.B.A. in puffery.
Puffery is what advertisers/salespeople do to play on our emotions to get us really excited about something. Puffery walks delicately upon the fine line of truth and fiction. Puffery is the largest amount of vague (usually subjective) exaggeration which marketers can get away with, before they are dragged into court under accusations of fraud. Puffery uses words like best, better, always. Here’s my favorite example of puffery:
Examples of puffery in slogans:
“Open a Coke, open happiness.”
“Nothing outlasts an Eveready battery.”
“Made from the best stuff on Earth – Snapple.”
“Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes – They’re Grrreat!”
Another example of puffery is the giant, perfectly curated burger on the enormous billboard that looks nothing like the flattened, smashed, much smaller version which we get from our local fast food chain. Or the car or alcohol commercials and advertisements, where the implication seems to be that only stunningly beautiful and wealthy, healthy looking people, with a gazillion friends and family surrounding them, who are seemingly as equally amazing and cool, are seen to be utilizing these particular products happily together. But this is nothing new. We all know this. The Federal Trade Commission is very generous in what it allows to be legally stated. Unless you can prove that there is an out-and-out lie in a statement, the puffery stands. In other words, I can say, “Extremely accomplished and talented people like Taylor Swift read my blog.” I just can’t say, “Taylor Swift reads my blog.”
Since we all know that we live in a pile of puffery, coming at us from everywhere that we look, now more than ever – from our phones, our TVs, our computers, our radios, billboards, magazine and newspaper ads, paid reviews on websites, politicians, social media influencers, etc. no wonder why we feel so much collective anxiety and mistrust. If there was one thing that was drilled into us as marketing majors in college that I will never forget, it was this statement: “Perception is reality.” The marketing game is to figure out what people want as their own reality, and then to imply the perception that if you use this particular product, it will get you to your desired reality.
The funny thing is, while different people want many different types of physical realities, the reason why anyone wants any particular reality, is all the same. They believe that if they get their desired reality, this reality will give them the feelings that people universally seem to want: love, happiness, peace, excitement, prestige, comfort, respect, etc. But if we rely on the things outside of us that we buy and that we use, in order to try to get us to the feelings that we want to possess, doesn’t that put us in a vulnerable position? When we do this, we put our own feelings in the control of products outside of ourselves, and the salespeople who liberally use puffery to sell us these products, and get away with it all of the time. And to make matters worse, marketers love when we feel vulnerability and fear. They’ve got all sorts of products that you can buy to help relieve you of those terrible feelings: insurance, alarm systems, drugs, doorbell cameras, bear spray, self-help systems, etc.
This is why it is so important to be able to study ourselves and our own emotional reactions to things and to people, in a rational, detached, observant sort of way. This is why it is so important to be able to question and to differentiate as to what is factual and what is actually puffery in our own lives? When we get emotional, we often play the puffery game on our own selves, using extreme absolutes when we talk to ourselves: “I always break my diets. She never listens to me. No one cares about me. I’m doomed. The world’s going to hell in a handbasket.” We say that we can’t stand drama queens, but the queeniest one, is usually smugly propped on a golden throne, inside of our own heads.
The answer to being teflon to puffery is to learn to trust yourself. Get to know yourself and what your core values are, and put strong boundaries around your core values. Learn to hear your intuition (time alone with mediation, prayer, breathing exercises, journaling, etc. helps immensely with this) and put more faith into your own inner voice than any outside influences. Know how resilient you are, and that no matter what happens, you will be able to deal with consequences of any situation. (if you are middle-aged, you’ve got a lot of factual proof of this already, from your many life experiences) Learn to notice and to laugh at all of the puffery all around you. Like a little bird who puffs up its feathers in order to scare off its predators, or to impress would-be mates, in the end, puffery is just a little harmless bird that you can control in the palm of your hand. Don’t let a puffy little bird, nest up in your head, perched on the shoulder of your inner drama queen. Let the puffy little bird fly free, as you calmly, steadily, and faithfully continue to walk your one, unique path.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Woo-hoo, Kel, this post is a doozy! You’ve taken on two of the most difficult skills to master: being immune to puffery and trusting yourself. Both are essential to living a happy and content life, but oh, are they hard to do!
I’m not going to belabor the points you’ve made in your post, because you did a great job making them and don’t need my help. Instead, I’m going to relate an experience I’m currently having.
My long time friend, let’s call her Lee, is just now beginning to learn to trust herself, at the tender age of 58. She is not lacking in intelligence – she created her own dual major in college, had a career as a technical writer, and later decided to become a teacher, a career that she is slowly winding down. She’s begun a third career in the insurance business, and after a very long learning curve, she’s finally got traction and is killing it in her firm.
Lee has raised two children and been by her husband’s side through two bouts of cancer, the second of which involved an experimental stem cell treatment that required him to be isolated in the hospital for 30 days. Thankfully, he survived and has gone on to live a happy life, although his health remains precarious. She shepherded her father – a very narcissistic, cantankerous Viet Nam vet – through his final years, and has spent the past 5 years settling his estate, which was in complete chaos when she inherited it. The past couple of years, while she was beginning her third career, there were MAJOR plumbing issues with her home, necessitating demolition of the upstairs bathroom, kitchen, and flooring replacement on the ground floor. To say the least, this woman had a lot on her plate.
In some areas of her life, like her teaching, she is uber confident. But when it comes to personal relationships, she is a complete mess. She spends hours agonizing over her decisions and second-guessing herself. She worries endlessly over situations that MIGHT occur, but haven’t actually materialized. She has insomnia, drinks a minimum of 2 liters of Coke every day, and her hair is falling out. She is overweight and has given up on improving her personal appearance.
Lee is a bit of a hoarder, with aspirations of accomplishing Martha Stewart or Marie Kondo-level perfection. She falls for the puffery – buying loads of bento-style boxes to create healthy lunches for herself and her hubby (but not making any lunches at all), taking up new crafts for which she buys an enormous amount of supplies but rarely uses them, and has every kitchen gadget known to mankind when all she really needs is a phone, because she orders takeout daily. In short, she is trying to fill the inner void with STUFF, desperately hoping that it will bestow the order, peace, and contentment that she craves.
During the past few months I’ve sensed a change in her. She’s begun asking about my meditation practice, and commenting that since I left my marriage I’m far happier and more content than she’s ever seen me before. And she wants that.
I introduced her to my Reiki master, and Lee’s begun a Reiki program, having sessions every 2 weeks because she has a LOT of negative, stuck energy to move. I’m astounded that she’s open to that, because she’s always looked askance at my metaphysical practices. But it’s working. She’s beginning to allow many of her repressed emotions and old traumas to come to the surface so she can deal with them. She is finally ready to handle those scary feelings. It is a beautiful thing to witness.
She is finally beginning to acknowledge her own resilience, which I think is far greater than my own. We had a very deep conversation, lasting into the wee hours of the morning, during which I recounted all the stuff that she has survived in the 45 years that we’ve been friends. What we discovered together during that night is that she has survived a lot of traumas, but she hasn’t OVERCOME them. She carries them with her as fresh wounds that inform every decision that she makes. The burden is overwhelming, and paralyzes her so that she has difficulty moving forward. She has not learned to trust her instincts, but relies on the outcome of past experiences to guide her decisions. Even when she KNOWS the right path for her, she often fights that knowledge and goes a different way, based upon old fears and hurts. And, of course, that also ends up in disaster, which just reinforces the notion that she can’t trust herself.
Lee is very slowly beginning to peel back the layers, to drop the armor that she has spent a lifetime building up. It’s a slow process, but every stride is a step in the right direction. She recently acknowledged that she is good at her job, and that she does it better than the twenty-somethings at her same level, because she has the benefit of more life experience to guide her. Say what?? She has gained wisdom? Why yes, she has. And she can trust it, because she knows it to be her truth. That was a revelation.
I have high hopes for Lee. It’s going to take a considerable amount of time and effort for her to truly believe in herself, but eventually she’ll get there. We both hope that she can leave the puffery behind, because it causes far more angst than it resolves. I can’t wait for her to step into her own power, to discover that she is indeed a force to be reckoned with. When that happens, she will be unstoppable, and it will be a beautiful thing.
Lee is lucky to have you as a friend, Kelly. I wish her only the best. Onwards and upwards!
I have high hopes for Lee, too. Thank you, always, Kelly. <3