The single person credibility gap
More people are single today than ever before, with 32 million single Americans, and even higher numbers in Japan and Europe. But if you look at ads, single people apparently have zero credibility. Why do I say this? Because in most commercials, if you look closely, everyone is wearing a wedding ring.
A lot of the time you don't even have to look that closely. Start paying attention and you will notice that a lot of commercials linger on the wedding band, or go to great pains to put it in the shot. I guess there is something about a married person that is subconsciously more credible to us, the toilet cleanser-buying audience?
It's not just ads for household products. We're talking ads for fast food, consumer electronics, car insurance… basically everything is sold by married people. How sad and annoying is that? It just reinforces the stereotype that single people are untrustworthy, irresponsible, and not to be listened to. RUDE.
Image courtesy Flickr/foodchronicles