Is Partial Truth a Lie?

Have you ever wondered on this simple thing? Let me start by explaining what I mean here as partial truth. It’s more like omitting part of the truth or let’s says misstating the truth with the twist of words. Here is an example.

Girl: "Hey why you are not at the stadium with your friends, isn't your favorite team playing today?"

Guy: "Yes, they are. But I would rather be with the girl of my dreams." (Fact: I did not get tickets!!)

It might sound romantic in this context, so where is it bad? Mmm... lets analyze further. The public rely on media to get the news around the world, which includes everything happening on earth from science & technology to business & politics (yes they pair!). Big businesses also depend on the media for their advertisement and marketing.

Now the Media as we expect should act as a good liaison and bring us the quality information, but then the media itself needs to propagate its sales. Now comes the act of the tricky devil - media exaggerates, modifies, twists and omits the truth based on its likes for and cash flows from the "party" involved creating hot news and a selling point for them. Party could be political, company, business establishment or even an individual. Everyone knows this on the back of their minds but have you ever wondered how much of an effect it has on the society? How many things are decided just because the papers said so? How many companies lost their share values on this? The more we analyze the more unethical it sounds. Of course it is!! When we were kids we were taught Truth is just Truth any other form of it is plain cold lie. But when it comes to the business world, somehow they succumb to the market politics and deep played economics and alter the definition of Truth itself to suit their needs.

What I have seen happen around the globe is that the media slowly become a marketing portal for the firms that they support (indirectly supported by the firm - is this highly skilled version of symbiosis). It is now Mardi gras season for the media world, chewing in the quarter results, promotion and pay hike announcements from many companies. Use caution and try to get the first hand information when you read these instead of believing what you see in papers. Like Valluvar says:

“Whatever your hear from whomever,To analyze the truth is wisdom’s fair”

“Knowledge is to find the truth of things, Of whatever nature and kind it may be”

Stop the ADs your Sales will Grow

Yesterday while watching this AD on Yoplait I was really wondering what is with the United States Advertisement Industry. Some of the old time college ADZAPs were really good compared to the best ones here. They have the latest equipments and all kinds of gadgets for movie making, well I guess those do not come out of the Hollywood doors! I know what you are thinking, Should they not review their Ads atleast a couple of times? Ofcourse they do. The problem is they do not realise what is wrong with it. Most of these ADs are boring or reiterating what we already know about the product or teaching us a big theory as if we signed up for a tv-class. Not to mention the medical ADs, either they think it is funny or they think we have all gone to the medical school, but a layman would panic and throw away all the medicines he has ever bought.

Media has evolved and has given us umpty of options that we are used to flipping channels as soon as the AD starts, only few times out of utter laziness to pick up the remote that is few meters away or not able to find the remote or best we are simply browsing and the TV is running as a background music, we leave it to run. Nevertheless even in these few times some of the ADs are so horrible that we take pains to switch the channel. With such Ads everyday what was so different about this AD? This is supposed to be an AD about yoplait being a waist reducer, if it is that good then someone cannot look at a person eating it for a while and say I will loosen your clothes for better fit. No No that is not out of the Box it is Out of the Common Sense thinking. I would say it is the heights of American Ads.