This is topic False Advertising..the "Fastbrite Headlight Cleaner" commercial caught by me in a LIE in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 07-04-2011, 02:49 PM:
 
Anyone here ever see the commercial for the "Fastbrite Headlight Lens Restore Kit"? They make a claim that cleaning the haze off your headlight covers with their product makes your headlights "5 times brighter". Their ad shows two headlights, one hazy and one cleaned with their product, being measured by lightmeters. The one on the left, the hazy one, reads 170, while the one on the right, the one they cleaned, reads 976. Impressive right?

Well, when they do the zoom in on the meters, take a close look in the lower right of the meter's displays. (this is at around :28 into the ad)

The meter on the right is reading footcandles.

The meter on the left is reading LUX!!!

One of the worst examples of false claims I have ever seen in years.

And 99.99999% of the dolts who buy this crap will not even notice.

Heck, even visually is it clear that there is not a 5 times difference in brightness between the two.

Dumbasses.

Here is a link to the site, the video is there but you cannot enlarge it without a pop-up for the order form. :

Big Liars website
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 07-04-2011, 06:55 PM:
 
And 976 lux is 53% of 170 foot-candles. They're telling you the product makes your lights LESS luminescent in the before-after shot.
 

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Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 07-04-2011, 07:37 PM:
 
I've not used this particular product, but I have used the headlight restoration kit sold at Wal-Mart and it works really well, though it definitely takes longer than 5 minutes.
 

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Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 07-05-2011, 03:37 AM:
 
That's pretty blatant but just an example of tricky advertising that happens all the time. Ever watch those commercials selling knives where they show it cutting through a can and then cutting a tomato? Ever notice how they use the back part of the knife to cut the can and then use the tip of the knife (and no part that was cutting the can) to cut the tomato?

Yeah, I watch a lot of infomercials...
 

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Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 07-05-2011, 04:57 AM:
 
Of course, if you need a knife that can cut a shoe, maybe you're not buying the best quality meats.

-Jerry Seinfeld
 

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Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 07-05-2011, 07:23 AM:
 
"In this world, you get what you pay for."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle)

My son bought a kit at the local auto parts store (>$10) and it worked like a charm. His car failed inspection for dim headlights but passed after using it.

That scene where its like "wax on wax off" is . I reality it takes about 15 minutes to work.
 

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Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 07-05-2011, 02:29 PM:
 
First of all, anything you can get from someone who spends lots of money on TV ads you can, or will soon, be able to get cheaper from Walmart or elsewhere.

The real clue is if you hear of any variation of "But wait, there's more . . ." or "Wait, we'll double this offer;" Time to hit the mute button or change channels.

But there sure must be an infinite number of fools who do buy this crap for them to continue running them seemingly for ever.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-05-2011, 02:59 PM:
 
?....remember the junk one would buy through the H.R. Fingerhut catalogs?

Stuff was plain horrible and overpriced.
 

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Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 07-05-2011, 03:14 PM:
 
What!?! Commercials LIE?!?!
I'm Shocked! SHOCKED!!

 

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Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 07-05-2011, 05:10 PM:
 
Plastic headlights. Pathetic.

My cars still have glass headlights.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-05-2011, 10:14 PM:
 
Actually, all cars have glass (or quartz) headlights. It's the lenses that are plastic.

We sell a ton of the 3M lens restorer system. It works really well.
 

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Posted by Jim Henk (Member # 3628) on 07-06-2011, 03:21 AM:
 
"What!?! Commercials LIE?!?!
I'm Shocked! SHOCKED!!"

"I'm shocked. Shocked! To find out that gambling is going on in here." - Claude Rains in Casablanca
 

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Posted by Wayne Keyser (Member # 2420) on 07-06-2011, 08:40 PM:
 
I'm told that a soft cloth, ordinary toothpaste and plenty of patient elbow-grease will do the job just fine.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-06-2011, 11:41 PM:
 
There was an expose I saw once, maybe 60min, that showed the LIES in most of those "info"mercials. One that stuck in my mind because I thought it was hilarious was the one for this hand-held blender kind of thing -- a wand looking device with a blade on the end of it that you'd stick in a jar, put in some skimmed milk and it would whip the stuff so hard it would make what looked like whipped cream, but had to taste as horrible as skimmed milk tastes. You could whip, grind, chop all sort of stuff, even make mayonaise with it.

It seemed to work really well. Come to find out, that on the set, they had about 5 dozen of these wand blenders and when they were shooting to make that wonderful mayonaise or grind coffee beans, or crush ice into smoothies, they would plug this thing into 230v and run it until it'd burned up; then they'd replace it with another one for the next shot until IT burned up and so on until they got the commercial done.

The other one I remember was that car wax commercial where they claimed this stuff would make an old, dull beat-up car finish look like new. And it would protected a new car's finish against every sort of horrific elements.

To prove this, they got some really expensive car, I think it was a Jaguar, or as the hoity-toity now like to pronounce it, a Jag-U-are -- I guess they didn't want to be outdone by the Porsche vs. the hoity-toity Porsch-A -- they first polished the hood of this car with the product, then poured lighter fluid on the hood and lit it on fire. They let it burn for awhile, then extinguished the fire and gave the hood a little rub with the clean rag, and POOF, it was good as new. Well, at least good as new to the NTSC standard rez of the camera could see with the specially placed glare of the sun hitting it and especially for the zoom in where the shot was cut to an insert of the paint on the part of the hood that was NOT set on fire. Sufice it to say, a good portion of the cost of that product now goes to settle the lawsuit that the Porsche dealer who rented the car to the production company brought againt them. Seems the paint on the hood of the car was totally discolored and in some places blistered and even scorched.

So yes, my sweet, innocent Tony, there is a Santa Claus, and he lies thru his ass!
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-07-2011, 08:24 AM:
 
There was a show called "Fight Back with David Horowitz" that would test various ad claims. He still has a web site www.fightback.com.

-Steve
 

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Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 07-07-2011, 09:55 AM:
 
I've just never understood how this kind of blatant false advertising can be legal.
 

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Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 07-07-2011, 01:27 PM:
 
Same here.

Another detail I did notice re those light meters....the one measuring footcandles had the range indicator of "x10" also..so if the reading was really 1,700 fc then why not leave that in play? Or why not do BOTH in lux or fc? Most likely the reason is there is NO "5 times difference" ....maybe only a modest increase in light....

I don't know the conversions from fc to lux offhand...
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 07-07-2011, 08:00 PM:
 

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr

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I don't know the conversions from fc to lux offhand...

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quote: Ken Lackner

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I've just never understood how this kind of blatant false advertising can be legal.

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