Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
This past week, I received an email from a listener that I really appreciated and I thought I’d share it here with y’all today. This is from Ian: “Hi Kathy! Just wanted to let you know our family is very thankful for the ways the Filter It Through a Braincell podcast has helped us understand logical fallacies and analyze arguments. We're on episode #48 and have listened to all of them with our older kids aged 12, 10, and 8. It's been fun to pause the podcast after you introduce the review topic and see what they remember, or what examples they can come up with. Today we came across this article and were able to apply the critical thinking skills we've learned to have a great discussion about the merits of his argument about false equivalence, the appeal to emotion present throughout, and, ironically, the false equivalences he makes and doesn't back up with evidence. It shows that even well-written and convincing articles can still be logically flawed. Thanks again for your work in helping an entire generation learn how to think!” You guys! THIS, this is exactly why I do this podcast and exactly what I hope you & your family will get from it! So, big shoutout to Wellington, Isla (eye-la) and Adaira (uh-dare-uh) on learning & applying good thinking! And thanks for listening!
Alright, today I’m going to do something a little different. I’ve had a few people recently send me emails about things they’ve read or heard and they ask if there’s a fallacy being committed, and if so, which one. So, I thought this might make for a fun & interesting episode to talk about this here with you and see if you can figure it out too! I really encourage you to hit pause at different times during this episode to talk about it and see what you think before I tell you.
Today’s example came from a listener named Daun. She writes: “Hi, Kathy - I first heard you on the Strong Women Podcast - very neat! There is an ad that is continually broadcast on Christian radio here in the Springs that is truly based on bad logic. Not sure which fallacy, but maybe "XYZ." Have you heard the life insurance radio ad from "Big Lou?" It starts something like, "Diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety meds.... Everybody's on them." It ends with, "Big Lou's like you; he's on meds, too." This ad seems offensive to me as a thinking person, and I don't understand why they broadcast it on this station. Have you heard this, too? And what do you think?”
Ok, yes! I have heard this ad and have commented & laughed about it in the car with my daughter! As Daun says, it’s an ad for life insurance, and I love that she sent this in because it’s such a great study in fallacies, marketing strategies, etc…there are several things going on here! First of all, I want to point something out: Is it a successful ad? What do you think? Well, if I were a marketer, I’d say absolutely YES! How do you know? Because we remember it! It stood out to us, even if it stood out to us because it’s kind of weird & annoying, the fact is, we remember it and can even quote it word for word. That’s exactly what every marketer hopes to do - create an ad that resonates, that “sticky” and that people remember!
So back to this ad. The whole thing about this ad is that it’s about “Big Lou”, a regular guy and how he’s on medication himself and therefore he understands that “everyone else” is on medication, too, but that he can still get you insurance when other companies won’t insure you due to your pre-existing health conditions. Let me read a little more of the copy on this ad, here’s how it begins: “Diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety meds…everyone’s on them. If you’re a 50-year old male, maybe a bit porky, and you may even have Type 2 Diabetes”...then he goes on to tell them the number to call to get $1M of life insurance. He ends the commercial by saying, “Lou is one of you, and makes sure the scales are tipped in your favor….remember, Big Lou is just like you: he’s on meds too!”
Alright, so do you want to hit pause real quick and see if you can name some of the fallacies or marketing tactics that are happening in this ad?
As for me, the first and the biggest one that stands out to me is the Plain Folks fallacy that we covered back in episode 103. The plain folks or plain clothes fallacy happens when an argument is made to seem more convincing by presenting the speaker as a "common" or "ordinary" person. In this ad, they make Big Lou super relatable to their target audience by telling you he’s porky or overweight and on medication due to other health issues. This is meant to make his target audience trust him, listen to him and feel comfortable doing business with him.
Another fallacy that is happening here in a way is the Bandwagon fallacy, which we talked about in Episode 19. The Bandwagon Fallacy is when someone tries to get you to believe, think or do something just b/c a whole bunch of other people are already believing, thinking or doing it. It’s the “everybody’s doing it so it must be right” fallacy. Notice how he starts off by saying, “everybody’s on them” when he’s talking about the medications at the beginning of the episode? That’s a way of getting his target listener to self-identify with all these other theoretical people who have the same health challenges as they do and take the same action they took, which is calling Big Lou to get insurance.
Another fallacy that’s sort of happening here, in a lesser way, is the Appeal to Group Identity, and I’ll explain what I mean. An Appeal to Group Identity, which we discussed in episode 122 says that since you’re a part of a certain group, you should automatically do or believe XYZ. Now, in this instance, the marketing term is called “target audience” and it means who you’re talking to. Now, does having a target audience automatically mean you’re committing the Appeal to Group Identity fallacy? No, not necessarily! Every business has a target audience. You have to know who you’re talking to, what they care about, how they think, etc. For instance, I have a target audience for this podcast: it’s middle & high schoolers and their parents. That’s who I have in mind when I create content and it’s who I’m talking to. In marketing, they say that if you’re not talking to a specific audience, you’re not talking to anyone. So just because this ad is specifically talking to porky middle age men doesn’t necessarily mean they’re committing the Group Identity fallacy, but there are definitely nuances of it, which is why I wanted to point this out.
Now, I did a little digging into Big Lou because I wanted to see if Big Lou was really a person who sells life insurance, and would you believe, there’s no Big Lou!! I went to Big Lou’s website and this is what they say on the About Us page: “Big Lou® is the Brand Name used in advertising that was created by TermProvider in 2011. Big Lou is an every person, meaning, that he is just like most of our clients in that he needs Life Insurance and has a few health glitches.” So, Big Lou is a caricature that this insurance company created intentionally to give their target audience someone to relate to. It’s a form of Personification, from episode 67. Personification is when you give a broader range of human characteristics to an inanimate object or animal. In this case, they turned a life insurance policy into a porky guy affectionately named Big Lou.
Alright, guys, there you have it. That’s my analysis of this radio ad. What do you think? I’d love to hear if you found any other fallacies here that I missed, and I’d also love to hear how you liked this episode? Should I do more episodes like this where we discuss fallacies people are asking about in real life? Send me an email or message me on social media and let me know!
And by the way, if you’d like more of this kind of thing, sign up for my monthly membership, Crazy Thinkers! Every month, I send out a pdf with this exact kind of stuff! I give you memes, headlines, cartoons, ads, etc and give you specific questions you can use to discuss and figure out the fallacies! It’s a great way to practice what you’re learning here in the podcast. Alright, that’s it for today,
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
