What is a marketing gimmick/misleading fact that people still fall for?

Yes, this is very common with alternative "medicines".

They package their snake oil to look similar to real medical products, even matching fonts and styles.

Where real medicine lists the effects and side effects, these products instead often have a couple sentences describing the problem (e.g. headaches & diarrhea) and then a couple more sentences talking about their product (e.g. "Snake plus is naturally sourced from free range snakes, organically processed into capsules for safe consumption").

The implication being the product helps to relieve the symptoms they just described... except since there is no verified proof it actually works, they're not legally allowed to make that claim, therefore they never actually state it does anything.

My favourite term they use is "scientifically formulated". Cause it sounds like they used "science" to create their formulation, and therefore once again implying it works without actually stating so. In reality that term just means they measured the ingredients. Nothing more.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent