| The Supplement Industry at its Worst |
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| by Sal Marinello, C.S.C.S., C.P.T. | |
| Sunday, 13 May 2007 | |
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Muscletech is pushing its latest muscle-building supplement, and the advertising campaign represents everything that’s bad about the supplement industry. Muscletech – one of the more popular brands of dietary supplements – is pushing a product called naNO Vapor and touting it as “the world’s strongest vaso-anabolic psychoactive experience.” Worth noting is the fact that there really isn’t such a thing as a “vaso-anabolic experience.” This marketing phrase is kind of like saying, “Poke-ball is the world’s best poker-baseball experience.” Welcome to the world of dietary supplement marketing.
In the June 2007 edition of Muscle & Fiction, I mean Muscle & Fitness magazine there is a “Special 6-Page Ad Report” titled "Natural Born Killer," and the intro to the ad text tells us that, “Inside each of us lives a primal beast waiting for the command to attack the gym. Unleash its ruthless fury with naNO Vapor.” Things go down hill from here, as this 6-page waste of magazine paper invokes every violent image imaginable. Rather than focus on the ingredients contained in their latest “breakthrough,” Muscletech tries to drive home the point that this mish-mosh of ingredients will allow you to unleash the muscle building monster that lies deep within you, blah, blah, blah.
The best/worst part of this advertisement is that Muscletech has seen fit to graphically alter the eyes of the body builder model so that he has these yellow “evil eyes” to compliment his psychotic facial expressions. Yessir, making faces and looking homicidal really will help your muscles grow.
Given the history of violence that has surrounded body builders, especially recently, you would think that the Muscletech people would stay away from this kind of imagery rather than embrace it. For the better parts of 4 decades the shadow of “Roid Rage” has enveloped bodybuilding. Whether this syndrome is fact or fiction, advertising a muscle building product with phrases like “uncage your natural born killer,” and refers to people as “beasts,” “pit bulls,” “ruthless killer” and training with an “animal-like madness,” gives credence to “Roid Rage.”
The violent imagery used in this advertisement reveals just how pathetic these supplement marketers are. The nonsensical claims made about this product would normally be enough to be more laughable than the usual supplement bluster. This ad report tells us that this powder contains ingredients that are “designed to leave you hellbent on utter destruction,” and will “ensure that anabolic hormone production is primed and coursing through your blood,” and will deliver “a precise portion of a nanomolecular cell volumizing compound (that) rapidly penetrates the cells of your muscle fibers causing them to stretch.” But the violent and angry clothes that this product is dressed in really is remarkable, for it indicates how appealing to the lowest common denominator is utmost in the minds of supplement marketers.
The next time you think about buy one of these products just remember the tactics supplement companies are willing to use in order to sell their products. If this stuff really worked, would it need to be advertised in this manner? Trackback(0)
Comments (1)
![]() written by dlan, July 22, 2007
I dont care how stupid the marketers this stuff works ive looked at the ingredients and its NO explode but better so try it then bash it if you dont like it
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 14 May 2007 ) |
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