Consumer Conspiracy

This commercial pitch uses the approach of offering the consumer secret information that some industry "doesn't want you to know about". This can be investment tips the financial industry doesn't want you to know about. Miracle cures the medical industry doesn't want you to know about. Tax tips the IRS doesn't want you to know about. Even low furniture prices the other stores don't want you to know about.

You're not supposed to stop and think that these secrets are being sold over the mass media and if these industries really didn't want you to know about them, you wouldn't.

See also The Man Is Sticking It to the Man.

Advertising

 * Kevin Trudeau's "X They Don't Want You To Know About" series of books and infomercials. While pretty much every All-Natural Snake Oil peddler has made grandiose claims about being suppressed by "Big Pharma" and the FDA, Trudeau is one of the few that got called on his schemes while he was still selling vitamins. Because of those schemes, selling books is about the only thing he can do now—anything else would land him in jail again, due to restrictions put on him by the FTC and the SEC.
 * Matthew Lesko, AKA "That guy in a suit borrowed from The Riddler" claims his book's full of money the US government's giving away and how to get it. There's only two problems with this: First, most of the information he's selling is in publications you can get for free from the government, and those documents are not secret in the slightest. Second, the reason most people don't know about these programs is that most people can't use them; they're meant for corporations, small businesses, and other organizations seeking grant money or startup capital. If you were looking to start a business, it might be useful, but you'd probably be better off going directly to the SBA for assistance.
 * Car filters that'll add miles to your gas's performance. In principle, it makes sense; if cars were super-efficient, less gas would be sold, meaning less money for oil barons, who of course run the world. In practice, it's idiotic; the "100 MPG carburetor" of legend is pretty much fuel injection, which every modern car uses, and anything that involves magnets or forcefields won't work because magnets do not work that way.
 * Uncle John's Bathroom Reader makes a very cogent point about those '1,000 Mile' filter claims: why would a car company sit quietly, for years, on a technology that adds hundreds of miles to an automobile's performance? It would make them a fortune on the open market, and since they could have a patent in a matter of months, it would give any of them a massive advantage over their competition.
 * Likewise, if your friend brags about the amazing gas mileage his car will soon get and shows you the copper-coil-in-a-Mason jar rigging he just installed under the hood, hold onto your monocle for this one: your friend is an idiot.
 * There was one commercial for a TV service competing against cable (probably DirecTV) where the woman narrating it says "she only has a few seconds to tell you what the cable company doesn't want you to know" because they're about to stop her. (And not, you know, because they designed and bought a 30- or 15-second spot.)
 * Credit Counseling/Debt Consolidation services "the credit card companies don't want you to know about". Ironic because a number of these services are operated by the credit card companies themselves: If you declare bankruptcy, credit card debt is most likely to get discharged, so they'd rather help you cut a deal and at least get something.
 * A variant in the UK is ads for debt write-off services. These claim to be able to write off all debts taken out before 2007, either "thanks to a recent law change" or due to a "government scheme". All of this is lies; the worst that could be done is the debts are found unenforceable on a technicality, which is substantially different from a write off (the debt not being enforceable just means they can't take you to court over it, however you still owe the money and the bank can still mark you as having defaulted). Worse still, judges in cases that have gone to court have seen right through the intentions of people trying these technicalities and turned them down. Oh yeah, and this service costs money.
 * A variant is keeping that information from their own management: "We will offer these low prices until our boss catches on" or "While the finance department is on vacation we can offer these low prices" or (for a radio station) "Our boss is away so we can give away these really cool prizes". This requires some Willing Suspension of Disbelief to work—normally, buying from someone that's admittedly deceiving their boss would be iffy at best, but since they're being honest to you about it, it can't be that bad!
 * Especially during bleak economic times, this shows up in commercials attempting to sell "investors' kits" for the purchasing of stable commodities, particularly gold (at least in the United States). The pitch is that you're part of a wise secret club that's using information that those Wall Street fatcats don't want you to know about in order to make yourself recession-proof.
 * Questionable beauty secrets (tooth whitening, flat belly, etc.) advertised in Web banners and, always and always, "discovered by a mom." Practically all of these are hard sells (often with sneaky "free trials" that become expensive subscription plans without your permission) for products that you can find much cheaper at the drugstore or megamart. The weight-loss products in particular are pretty much just bulk laxatives, and they won't actually help you lose weight.
 * From the Cable-Satellite Mudslinging file, DirecTV "hacks into" various cable channels encouraging alternative methods of viewing. Since the channels themselves retain national advertising time, they are free to take ads from whoever they want.
 * A constant stream of ads, TV specials, shows, and movies about how you can beat the casinos. The casinos fund or support most of them.
 * Sometimes appears in ads for legal council. In these cases it will generally be true for once: Someone against you in a legal case most likely doesn't want you to know everything a competent lawyer will tell you, though is less than powerless to stop you from seeking one.

Web Original

 * In this issue of Employee Manuals called "Throw them a bone". Right after "as confusing as possible" part.

Western Animation
"Are you tired of missing out on the good things in life - family vacations, jet packs, Solid Gold dancers? Well, stick around, 'cause I'm gonna tell you the twelve savings secrets Wall Street won't tell you. Then, I'll show you the three ways to get back to the highway, [sotto:] including one shortcut those Wall Street fat cats don't want you to know!"
 * Chuck Garabedian from The Simpsons episode "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo:"


 * Later on the family finds him rooting through their garbage; he responds "You fat cats didn't finish your plankton; now it's mine!"