This week my good mate George Parker was railing (he does that better than anyone!) on his AdScam blog against the lies that clients and their agencies sometimes tell. 

Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to that. This tendency to shade the truth, or ignore it altogether, is a big reason why the advertising profession is generally held in such low esteem amongst the public overall, and with other business professionals, too.

Oh, and the same thing goes for my friends in the public relations profession. Whether they work at PR agencies or in-house at companies and organizations, too often PR types choose the path of least resistance, which is the one involving less integrity and transparency.

Having been in the PR and communications industry for many moons, I have seen it all in the PR profession. And, it ain’t always pretty. But, as the clever new FedEx commercial says, "I digress."

This week I was watching some questionable show on cable (aren’t most of them kind of that way?) and on comes the ubiquitous commercial for that bastion of "Casual Fine Dining" fare, Red Lobster. The Red Lobster chain and their ad agencies have always long been the masters of the fine art of food marketing and what is called in the biz, "table top photography."

They employ food stylists whose only job is to make the food in the ads literally jump off the screen or page and look as fresh, plump, savory and delectable as can be. Of course, all restaurant and food companies do this. Olive Garden’s spots make their food actually look edible. Believe me, it is far from it (and I don’t just say that as an Italian born food lover who actually knows what al dente means).

The problem is, once you get to that Olive Garden — or especially that Red Lobster — the food is nothing like that depicted in the commercials. Now, I know I am not the only person who feels this way. And it is not just because I am an advertising industry insider, and a "foodie" to boot. I am sure you have also experienced this cognitive dissonance when you have visited a Red Lobster (or Chile’s, or Applebee’s, or Olive Garden, or whatever) and ordered the same dish you saw in the appetizing TV spots, but the food was nothing like the ad version. Yeah, you’ve been there, too. It sucks.

Red Lobster cleverly extends that fiction to their well done web site. Check it out here. They even have sound effects of the thick juicy salmon, sizzling shrimp scampi and split lobster tails roasting deliciously on the wood fire. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, it virtually never turns out that way in one of those restaurants.And, trust me, the salmon does not look even close to what is shown in the ads or the website.

It seems that Red Lobster just can’t — or perhaps chooses not to — deliver on that brand promise of freshly made, plump, juicy and really delicious seafood. And that is a real shame. It deepens the cynicism that most people feel about advertising and business in general. And it’s why my chosen marketing profession ranks even below politicians (ouch!) in most reputation polls.

If the Red Lobster and their ilk can make such great looking food in their commercials, dang they should be able to deliver the same in their restaurants. Of course, in the commercial production process everything is controlled and totally artificial. Yes, that is real salmon they are showing, but it has all kinds of inedible gels and shellacs on it to make it look savory and really quite brilliant. Then in post production there is all kinds of retouching that goes on (just like they do to the models in fashion advertising and media) to remove even the tiniest imperfection from that scrumptious shrimp scampi and perfectly al dente linguini. (Pasta at these casual dining places is more gloppy than al dente.)

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a company putting its best face out there in its advertising. Their food — or clothes, computers, shampoo, etc. — should look the best it can be. But, the blatant disconnect between the way the food looks in TV commercials with the reality of how it looks (and tastes) in the Red Lobsters and Olive Gardens of the world, is beyond wrong.

It is just another example of stretching and shading the truth by companies and the advertising business of which I am proudly part (mostly proud).

Tell, and show, the truth in your marketing and advertising. It is always the best policy.

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