The fitness industry relies on advertising and hyped-up dreams to keep you buying products and spending your money. We all know the BS scams that are out there marketing over-priced and under-performing supplements and quick “fixes”. And now, you too can be a part of our great company and get rewards for everybody you swindle as a Brand Ambassador / Coach / Used Car Salesman. Since virtually anybody can be a “representative”, the way to grow your business and the company giving you kickbacks is through misleading and faked posts which attract customers. Recent events have brought more attention to the increasing deception and false advertising, rekindling the skepticism and distrust I have for the supplement industry. From the FTC, “federal law says that ads must be truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence.” By accepting the use of manipulated and photoshopped images to sell product, the fitness industry is accepting false advertising. I have seen the argument that magazines and other entities do similar all the time, however, they are NOT selling a product or deliberately attempting to deceive potential buyers.
Some companies pull out the empty study with the non-representative population under not-so-strict conditions and determine that the slightest glimmer of hope is a positive result of their over-priced product. Do all companies do it? No, but the ones that do tend to be the loudest advertisers in all the magazines and websites. Think about all the supplements that really work. Do you find out about them on the twitstagrambook? No, your friend or somebody at the gym tells you, not somebody getting a “kick-back” for convincing you to buy the product with their “Special Code”.
In “Fitness Industry Deception” I talked about using best case scenarios and images for advertising. The first time I remember this happening, a brand rep that was truly jacked was asked if the supplement he was repping made him that way. He responded with “You’d have to be an idiot to believe I got here just by taking this.” He was terminated shortly thereafter for telling the truth. Shredz rep Devin Zimmerman aka Devin Physique brought all of these techniques back. Not only did Devin “touch-up” his photos to create a better look, Shredz solicited and used before and after photos of amazing transformations claiming credit for the transformations despite those people never using Shredz. The reaction: an “apology” and claiming others do it as well. This isn’t totally new, but with social media explosion, this is happening more often with more companies.
Think back to the days when there were paid endorsements on TV for all sorts of things...same thing here, just without the pay until you punch it that special little code or buy the totally not-custom meal plan and $100 workout plan they copied from the July ‘87 Fit Muscle Rag. It’s moved from buying the magazine with “Arnold’s Latest Workout” to searching social media for a hot or jacked person selling a plan. *Side not, most of Arnold’s workouts were fabricated so they would look new, despite him doing the same routine for years.*
Don’t think this is just targeting men. With the surge in physique “competitors”, women are getting sucked into the same supplement / shortcut / bullshit as the men. Paige Hathaway has also been accused of manipulation and deception for her part in the Shredz scam. Women are particularly susceptible to this kind of advertising because of the push for the perfect bikini body and the rise in physique competitions. Just a quick trip through instagram and a few directed searches and you can find over 50 posts per week that are aimed at women.
In my piece last week, Progress Picture or Exotic Dancer Audition?, I began going after the over-sexualized outfits and posing that mimics an exotic dancer or film star more than a fitness professional. The industry advertising has led us to believe that photoshopped images aka “Adobe Gains” are real and possible using their products. We’ve gone down the rabbit hole so far that brand ambassadors with no real experience or qualifications beyond a “sale code” have joined in on the photo manipulation. I pointed out Shredz and their reps, but they aren’t the only ones relying on naivete and deception. It seems like every time I flip into Insta-famous, I see another coach posting their fantastic transformations and trying to get me to use their product sale code or join their team. (I’ll explain how these things work in a moment for those that don’t know.) And when I look at the photos, I can see signs of tampering, things like doorframes bending, televisions twisting, hard edges on muscles, etc. Some are really obvious, others, not so much. Some of the hardest ones are taken on plain color backgrounds. Even something as simple as applying a filter can change the whole physique of a person.
I’m not bitching about the Average Joe or Jane using filters or touching up their photos. Hell, we all dream of obtaining the perfect body and showing off our hard work. My complaint is with all the people that manipulate their images to generate sales of their scam product. If the product was that good, they wouldn’t need to manipulate images or sell you on it. When your product / MLM scheme can’t produce the results you advertise and you have to solicit images from others you’re falsely advertising. When you have to create bullshit contests where the “winner” didn’t even know they were part of the contest, you’re a fraud. And just because you created a program using a “stock photo” doesn’t excuse you because you know damn well that photo was probably touched up prior to you getting it.
So here’s how the “Brand Ambassador” thing works with sale codes:
-Buy product from said company and possibly pay for a “package”
-Receive code to distribute to your friends and followers
-Have a minimal internet presence to distribute code and post obnoxiously about it
-Possibly create your own “page” or tell friends / clients to check it out
-Stage some photos with the product
-Have people use your “discount code” when checking out to receive a percentage off
-The code registers back to you and you receive a certain percentage of their total purchase, like a sales commission
Seems just like standard sales, except more than a few of these ambassadors have no qualifications and no knowledge. It’s like asking a cashier at Wal-Mart about the best tires for your car; they may know something, but chances are it’s only what the company tells them to know. So before you run off and spend your hard earned cash, take a look at who represents them and consider their trustworthiness, as a company and as a representative. Look at their advertising pictures and mumbo jumbo. Do they use filters? Are they using perspective tricks to look better? Are they quoting “studies” as proof? If they are, they’re trying to trick you for a reason and they’re one of the bad parts of the industry.
I think this is a great post on youtube by Jason Blaha about the industry and how the sensationalized, misrepresentations are hurting everybody in the community - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACMHaUcwY-o.
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