Ad breakdown - Does Pediasure work? - Yes, it makes the height marker shorter
21st January 2016
This has been my concern around health drinks and supplements. Even the same people behind these ads would agree to me. They even tell the same truth as I do, but they do not want you to see it. They add the truth in small text that would almost blend with the background, so that you cannot read them for yourself. So let me help break down this ad for you.
0:17: "One of the factors for faltering of growth in children in the picky eating behavior. Green RJ et al, How to improve eating behavior during Early Childhood. Pediatr Gastroenterol Hepatol Nutr 2015 March 18(1) 1-9"
This is a good finding. Does not justify why Pediasure is needed to fix the eating behavior.
Now the real place where they fool the consumer.
0:24: Here you can see a depiction of using natural ingredients to fill up the Pediasure jar. You need to look at the bottom of the screen and know what they really are trying to communicate with this.
"Fruits and Vegetables are for creative depiction of the number of the nutrients. Pediasure does not contain these fruits and vegetables."
Great, so these fruits and vegetables are only used to represent the number of nutrients, not even represent the relative composition of nutrients. The same could have been achieved by rock or clay pot if the intent was only to represent the number of nutrients. Good job Pediasure.
0:27: Man, this is long. Lot of explanation on why this kid grew in 2 seconds.
The ad says " 1.5X FASTER>> GROWTH*"
That is what they want you to see. Let me try decoding this frame by getting in to the text at the bottom which is not intended to be seen, it is there to make sure they are not getting in to trouble for giving false promise.
" Creative depiction of growth. Growth here implies to weight and height. Result may vary in children at nutritional risk given nutritional counseling with or without nutritional supplements for 90 days. 1) Alarcon P. Clin Pedatr.2003,42:209-217 (ONS group consuming 40m/kg/day of Pediasure in addition to normal diet) and 2) Shakh I, Malaysia journal of Nutrition, Vol 21, Suppl, Jan 2015. Pg S81 (Among children with upper respiratory infections)."
That was a long one, intentionally hidden with a light background to make it difficult to read within that 1 second it flashes.
This will be interesting for you to know. I am just taking a dig at the poor attempt.
Before drinking Pediasure, the height marker was above the guys elbow.
With the magic of time and drinking Pediasure for 90 days, the height marker got shorter and is now below the guys elbow :D. Yaay, Pediasure worked.
Without going in to the details, in this case I cannot comment for sure if Pediasure is good or bad or another stuff we dump in and it does nothing. My worry is with these ads that drive opinion formation and forces you to take sides.