Lies We Bought

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

"Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner": The Slogan That Sparked a Federal Lawsuit

You've had that slogan in your head for thirty years. "Beef. It's What's For Dinner." Someone built it. Someone paid for it. And the story of who, and why, is way strange

Vitamins & Supplements: Why They Don’t Need FDA Approval

People take supplements for energy, immunity, or because someone on TikTok said magnesium changed their life. The U.S. supplement industry is worth billions, yet many pro

Firefighter Gear & Lululemon: The Same Poison Hiding in Our Clothes

PFAS, or "forever chemicals," have been hiding in plain sight for 80 years: in nonstick pans, fast food wrappers, stain-resistant furniture, and the turnout gear worn by

Wheaties: How Sports Marketing Invented a Healthy Illusion

For nearly a century, Wheaties convinced America that greatness could start with a bowl of cereal. This week on Lies We Bought, I open the cereal box on how “The Breakfa

Controversy Sells | One-Minute What

P.T. Barnum knew people would pay to see something questionable before they would ignore it completely. This One Minute What breaks down how controversy, curiosity, and

Nike's "Just Do It": The Dark Serial Killer Origin of a Global Slogan

In 1977, a man faced a firing squad in a Utah state prison and said three words. A decade later, an ad man changed one of them and handed them to the entire world. In th