Friday, May 7, 2010

Telling Use of Language --- Keeps your child healthy

I saw this advertisement online for a product called Horlicks which is a malted milk hot drink manufactured in the United Kingdom. The ad said "Keeps your child healthy." Now I have never had Horlicks and up until I saw this ad had never heard of it before. After doing some quick googling I found out that it is supposed to help promote better sleep. After more googling I found out that there is no evidence that it does help promote healthy sleep and that it is really more to help control mid-sleep hunger pangs. After reading all of this I wonder how it really helps promote a child's health. A rather large risk is being made in making this kind of claim about this kind of product. The risk being that the company is making a claim about themselves which unsubstantiated and lacks credible evidence and yet that make an ad which blatantly puts forward this claim. The company seems to be taking a calculated risk in thinking that parents love their children enough to buy them this hot malted milk but not enough to check out the facts behind it's claims.

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