Lies We Bought

Buy One, Get One Free Debunked: Who Pays for the Free One?

Buy one, get one free sounds like the store is handing you a gift, but the second item has been tucked inside the price of the first one for over a century, and the Supre

As Seen on TV: The Infomercial Moved to TikTok Shop

In 1949, a man demonstrating a blender on Cleveland TV got more than 400 phone orders in one day, and As Seen on TV was born. This episode of Lies We Bought follows the

Laughter Is the Best Medicine: The Science, the Myth, the Markup

Is laughter really the best medicine? In 1964, Norman Cousins checked out of the hospital, moved into a hotel room with a projector and a stack of Marx Brothers films, an

The Five Love Languages: The Dark Side of Love Advice

The Five Love Languages has sold millions of copies and shows up everywhere from first dates to therapists' offices, yet Gary Chapman built the framework from his own not

Smokey Bear: The Wartime Ad That Became a Government Icon

Smokey Bear has been telling America it's your fault since 1944. This episode traces the real story behind the mascot: a wartime scare on the California coast, an ad camp

Made in USA: Only 11% of What You Buy Actually Is

The "Made in USA" label feels like a promise. Legally, it's a lot looser than you think, and the amount of stuff that can actually earn it has been shrinking for decades.

Extended Warranty: The Fine Print Industry Built on Fear

Extended warranties aren't insurance. Legally, they can't even use the word. They're "service contracts," a separate category with none of the payout rules that protect y

Guess What Day Is It?: The Line That Took Over Wednesdays

Every Wednesday, GEICO's camel asks what day it is. The original ad that made that question famous racked up more than 16 million views on YouTube and then disappeared, w

Social Comparison: The Joneses Were Never Real

The phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" comes from a 1913 comic strip drawn by a cartoonist who nearly went broke trying to match his wealthy neighbors and the Joneses t

The Salt Conspiracy: From Ancient Currency to the Himalayan Pink Marketing Trap

Morton Salt's slogan started as a promise about clumping, not a warning about bad luck, and somehow it became both. This episode traces salt from ancient currency and em

Expiration Dates: The Corporate Strategy Forcing You to Waste Money

Most of the dates on your food aren't required by any law and weren't checked by anyone. This episode follows the story from a persistent Al Capone myth about spoiled mil

An Apple a Day: How a Dying Industry Invented a Health Myth

An apple a day keeps the doctor away sounds like grandmother's wisdom, but it was a 1904 marketing rescue plan for an industry that had just lost its actual product: booz

War on Drugs: The Famous TV Ad That Lied to America

The fried-egg ad that defined the War on Drugs was built by a marketing firm, not a doctor, and the science behind it was thinner than the slogan. Lies We Bought traces

Maxwell House: The Presidential Endorsement That Was Total Fiction

I grew up Mormon, which meant coffee was never allowed in my house, so it's a little ironic that this week's coffee myth isn't really about coffee at all, it's about five

The Fake Chocolate Scandal: Hershey's, M&M's, and More

Advertising lies, branding history, marketing deception: Lies We Bought is a weekly deep dive into the hidden origins of the slogans and campaigns that shaped what you bu

The Customer Is Always Right: Ex-Bartender Confession

"The customer is always right" wasn't a rule, it was consumer deception dressed up as a promise. In this episode, I go back to 1905 and the two department store men who i

Cash for Clunkers: How America Paid to Crush 700,000 Cars

In the summer of 2009, the federal government paid Americans to destroy nearly 700,000 working cars, and the four-word slogan that sold it did more work than the three bi

Pizza Hut's Book It!: The Genius Marketing Trap Behind Childhood Reading

For forty years, Pizza Hut's Book It program gave kids a free personal pan pizza for reading. More than seventy million children went through it. This is the story of wha

Listerine: How the "Always a Bridesmaid" Ad Invented a Fake Disease

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. The phrase sounds like it has been around forever, but it traces back to a 1925 Listerine ad built around a fictional woman named Edna

Seatbelt Laws: The Hidden Financial Motives Behind Car Safety

In 1993, North Carolina wrote four words on a sign and accidentally handed the federal government one of its most effective behavioral control tools in history. "Click It