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.