History Main / DeceptivelySimpleDemonstration

** This was parodied in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48URVmIMFcM a nineties Russian TV guide journal comercial]], which began with placing the journal in distilled water and the "ordinary newspaper" in sulfuric acid.

* The famous Levi's logo showing two horses pulling a pair of jeans indicates how tough they are. In the 1970s, the BBC consumer show ''Nationwide'' demonstrated that two horses pulling in different directions were indeed unable to tear the jeans, but suspected this was because the weaker horse was giving more than the fabric was. A single horse and a tree ''was'' capable of doing so.

* [[https://www.tiktok.com/@turboflex360/video/7118394721969442053 TikTok ads for Turboflex glasses]] has a normal pair of glasses being smashed in the temple by a hammer, breaking the whole frame in the process. This is compared to Turboflex glasses, which are bendable glasses and thus don't break. However it's plainly obvious that force of the hammer is not the same in the Turboflex shot, which is more of a light push downwards.

* Tesla, Inc. demonstrated the power of its electric Cybertruck by showing it easily winning a tug-of-war contest against a Ford F-150 pickup truck. The determining factor is actually that the Cybertruck weighs more and is a 4x4 model, while the F-150 shown is rear drive only and has less of its weight distributed over its rear wheels than its front wheels. This means the Cybertruck has more weight over its driven wheels, and therefore more traction. So it isn’t a fair contest, and all it really tells us about the Cybertruck is that it’s heavy.

* Low mileage vehicles. While mileage can be a factor in an used vehicle's condition, a better guidance while buying a car is the state in which it currently is. For example, a 50k mile car which spent all its life on badly-kept road and received literally no maintenance would be in a worse condition than a meticoulusly cared-for vehicle driven only on smooth suburban roads for 300k miles.

You could hire actors TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket to highlight the supposed deficiencies of the competition, you could hire an actor to play the InsaneProprietor (or hire two actors to be TwoGuysInAGarage), or you could use BeforeAndAfterPictures to showcase your AllNaturalSnakeOil. Or... you could show your product doing something it was never intended to do - and doing it well.

** For coke specifically, it ''is'' capable of doing some of the things claimed, even with video evidence (such as dissolving pieces of chicken). What they leave out is the use of undiluted syrup for this, which is usually shipped with hazard labels all over it. Once properly mixed with a soda base it's no more dangerous than, say, citric acid (and nobody's campaigning to ban lemon juice).

* Twenty or so years ago, Crest showed commercials where half an egg had been treated with their toothpaste, then the whole thing submerged in an acid solution. The treated side remained hard while the untreated shell became soft and malleable. What they didn't tell you is that virtually any fluoridated toothpaste would give you the same result.

** This is why toothpaste is usually the go-to example of a [[BestIsAverageBetterIsBest parity product]] -- i.e., one in which all competing brands are equally effective and largely interchangeable. In order to sell different brands, marketers have to resort to inventive (if mildly unethical) tricks like the egg-in-acid wheeze.

* A famous [[TonkaTough Tonka]] ad showed them pushing a Tonka dump truck off a cliff alongside a full-sized dump truck, to show the toy's resistance to damage. The toy was fine while the real truck was smashed... but that's because the toy is a few pounds of plastic and the real thing is dozens of tons of metal. A Tonka truck just flat-out isn't massive enough to damage itself in a fall like that, while a giant dump truck [[SquareCubeLaw certainly is]]. Hell, the Tonka truck actually hit the sides of the cliff and ''bounced'' on the way down, so on top of weighing ten thousand times less than the competition, it also didn't have any time to build up velocity. (Admittedly, there were a fair number of Tonka ads that showed that Tonka trucks really were pretty survivable, this just wasn't one of them.)

* The ur-example might be the 1970s Ginsu knife commercial that showed someone using a Ginsu to cut through an aluminum can. Even comedians of the time wondered why.

* The Miracle Blade 3 infomercial shows a guy wielding a knife like a sword to cut right through a pineapple that's hanging by a thread from the ceiling. It's supposed to make the user think the blade is as sharp as a sword - it must be to cut through that tough, spiny pineapple rind, right? But pineapples are actually quite easy to cut through, especially just below the crown. It's also easier to cut through tough foods with a wide-arced hacking motion than with the kind of careful, controlled slicing you ''should'' be using in the kitchen.
** Host "Chef Tony" Notaro also cuts up a strip of paper in the same infomercial. Cutting through paper is actually the ''bare minimum'' of whether or not a knife is sharp enough to be used for normal knife things.
*** Also, knife commercials always show the knife slicing through whatever is at hand. This is because these cheap knives are essentially saw blades (with serrated teeth on the blade). You will notice they will never chop, mince, or anything else a knife is used for, because they probably can’t do anything BUT slice and saw.

* Vacuum commercials and demonstrations work on this principle. Yes, the suction in a Dyson or an Oreck is strong enough to suspend a bowling ball, but what does that mean for your home? Not much, it turns out: without a decent beater bar to dislodge the dirt from carpeting and high-quality, thick brushes to sweep the dirt off hard floors, a vacuum with strong suction is little better than a vacuum with no suction at all (and even worse in some instances - strong suction can actually damage some surfaces).
** Not only that, but the pressure produced when the nozzle is completely blocked by a bowling ball does not necessarily have anything to do with the air flow rate when the nozzle is against a surface being vacuumed (which is what actually matters for cleaning).

* Every insurance company likes to point out that people who switch to their company save hundreds of dollars. Impressive, until you realize that people who won't save money don't switch and are excluded from the calculation. Also an example of [[LiesDamnedLiesAndStatistics lying using statistics]].
** Insurance rates also tend to drop as you get older, but most insurance companies won't recalculate your rate in the middle of a policy, and will try to keep charging the same when you renew a policy for as long as they can. This leads to people "saving" money not because the service is actually cheaper, but because their rates are being calculated using current information.

* In one commercial for Bridgestone Tires, they coated a bowling ball in the roll-surface of their tires, allowing it to be rolled down the lane in a perfect line for a strike. Actually, the main difficulty in aiming a bowling ball is the fact that it's heavy, has a polished or just very smooth surface, and that the floor you'll be rolling it on is also heavily polished and oiled, and therefore slippery. Coating a bowling ball in ''ANY'' rubber, whether it be from these tires, that of their main competitors, or even from a ''pencil eraser'' will give it much more traction and give you similar "perfect" results.
** In fact, it's the oil that's the key to the curve of a bowling ball: The slippery oil prevents it from curving until it gets to the dry part of the lane, where the ball then grips the lane and curves. The reason bowling balls aren't made of rubber is that they're more elastic (read: bouncy) than the current standard (plastic or polyurethane), thus actually harder to get a consistent curve, even on a smooth surface.

* Similar to the various kitchen cutlery products above, this also occurs in the bladed replica and reproduction market. Some sellers will attempt to up-sell "wall-hangers" (cheaper, dull or fairly dull blades, with the only purpose being to be hung on a wall plaque or table stand) by demonstrating how they can cut things like their business card (or just scratch off a layer from it), bottles of liquid, fruit, or vegetables, implying they're usable. And [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGTQLB1VQrA here's a video helpfully showing why attempting to use such replicas outside their intended purpose for whatever reason, is a bad idea]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqoc0x1McqU And here's another video]], from WebVideo/{{Skallagrim}} showing why cutting watermelons is not as impressive as some people would like to imply.

* Tesla, Inc. demonstrated the power of its electric Cybertruck by showing it easily winning a tug-of-war contest against a Ford F-150 pickup truck. The determining factor is actually that the Cybertruck weighs more and is a 4x4 model, while the F-150 shown is rear drive only and has less of its weight distributed over its rear wheels than its front wheels. So it isn’t a fair contest, and all it really tells us about the Tesla is that it’s heavy.

* [[KlatchianCoffee Energy drinks]] are the occasional subject of a moral panic, as allegedly they cause heart attacks, fainting, seizures and plenty other nasty things, which people attribute to some mysterious chemical ingredient. In practice, most of them are sugary soft drinks laced with vitamins, caffeine and taurine. About the same caffeine percent as a strong coffee. Keyword is ''sugary'', as they come in 250ml or 500ml cans and in hot summer months people may be tempted to consume them like any other soft drink, all at once. It's like saying someone got drunk from "a pint of alcohol" - it's not the same thing if a pint of pure alcohol comes from 10 beers drunk over many hours, or an entire bottle of malt whiskey in one sitting.

* A famous [[TonkaTough Tonka]] ad showed them pushing a Tonka dump truck off a cliff alongside a full-sized dump truck, to show the toy's resistance to damage. The toy was fine while the real truck was smashed... but that's because the toy is a few pounds of plastic and the real thing is dozens of tons of metal. A Tonka truck just flat-out isn't massive enough to damage itself in a fall like that, while a giant dump truck [[SquareCubeLaw certainly is]]. (Admittedly, there were a fair number of Tonka ads that showed that Tonka trucks really were pretty survivable, this just wasn't one of them.)

* [[https://youtu.be/c3Dd2tgtPjQ A semi-infamous ad]] for ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' merch (toy versions of Zabuza's sword and Sasuke's giant shuriken) had the actors very dramatically using these weapons to hack through thin hanging sheets of rice paper. Realistically, rice paper is probably the only thing they could cut through.

* A famous [[TonkaTough Tonka]] ad showed them pushing a Tonka dump truck off a cliff alongside a full-sized dump truck, to show the toy's resistance to damage. The toy was fine while the real truck was smashed... but that's because the toy is a few pounds of plastic and the real thing is dozens of tons of metal. A Tonka truck just flat-out isn't massive enough to damage itself in a fall like that, while a giant dump truck [[SquareCubeLaw certainly is]]. (Admittedly, there were a fair number of Tonka ads that showed that Tonka trucks really were pretty survivable.)