Advertising Case

I believe the use of before and after photos for certain fitness/beauty products are being used a third party technique. Instead of using just celebrities and experts these companies show you people who appear to be regular everyday people just like you and me. These people come on and explain to you that this fitness product changed their lives and give them unreal results in a very short amount of time. I recently found out that these before and after photos can actually be taken the SAME day because of varying photo taking techniques. A video was released a year ago showing, the ability to this and the results were amazing. The subject looked like he had lost 50 pounds in mere hours!

This link to a video provides an example. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LQZpVeWsfK4)

This is an article that shows different techniques to fake a photo.

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2009/jul/30/lose-20-pounds-two-hours/

In my opinion, most people looking at these fitness programs are very desperate to try an change their lives so when these advertisements presents people that are supposedly just like them the viewer is tricked. The viewer purchases the product believing it will work for them as well as I just like it worked for these people with the before and after photos.