Lies We Bought

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  Expiration Dates Don’t Mean What You Think 11.08.2026 16мин

  Most of the dates on your food aren't required by any law and weren't checked by anyone. This episode follows the story from a persistent Al Capone myth about spoiled milk, through the shoppers who cracked grocery stores' secret shelf codes in the 1970s, to the one government study that found the whole dating system doesn't reliably measure freshness at all. Plus the single food category where an expiration date actually is required, and the on-air moment I learned all of this the hard way.  📩 Sign up for exclusive emails and behind-the-scenes context: https://www.lieswebought.com/ 📱 Follow along on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
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  An Apple a Day: How a Dying Industry Rebranded Itself 04.08.2026 21мин

  An apple a day keeps the doctor away sounds like grandmother's wisdom, but it was a 1904 marketing rescue plan for an industry that had just lost its actual product: booze. Lies We Bought traces the apple from Prohibition-era cider crop to manufactured health symbol, tests the slogan against the 2015 study that actually measured it, and asks why we needed a doctor's approval to eat fruit in the first place. 📱 Follow along on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
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  The War on Drugs Ad That Lied to America 28.07.2026 22мин

  The fried-egg ad that defined the War on Drugs was built by a marketing firm, not a doctor, and the science behind it was thinner than the slogan. Lies We Bought traces how a single 1987 commercial turned drug fear into federal policy, who kept the budget flowing for a decade, and why the campaign worked long after the data stopped backing it up. It's a story about advertising as propaganda, and about a slogan so effective nobody thought to ask if it was true. 📱 Follow along on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebough Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
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  Good to the Last Drop: The Coffee Slogan That Sold America a Lie 21.07.2026 21мин

  I grew up Mormon, which meant coffee was never allowed in my house, so it's a little ironic that this week's coffee myth isn't really about coffee at all, it's about five words Theodore Roosevelt almost certainly never said. By the 1930s, Maxwell House was telling everyone that Roosevelt coined "good to the last drop" over a cup of coffee at Nashville's Hermitage Hotel in 1907. There was just one problem - he'd been dead for over a decade by the time the company started saying it, and the slogan itself had shown up nearly word for word on a Coca-Cola ad years before Maxwell House ever used it. This episode talks about the real story behind Joel Cheek and the hotel the coffee was named after, how a coffee brand built a marketing myth around a dead president who could never object, and why companies keep leaning on borrowed authority instead of the truth, backed by the psychology of why founding stories sell better than facts. A little birdie told me this one's a good one.   Sign up for exclusive emails and behind-the-scenes context: https://www.lieswebought.com/ 📱 Follow along on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
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  The Fake Chocolate Scandal: Hershey's, M&M's, and More 14.07.2026 29мин

  Advertising lies, branding history, marketing deception: Lies We Bought is a weekly deep dive into the hidden origins of the slogans and campaigns that shaped what you buy. This week, the chocolate industry. "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand" traces back to a WWII battlefield discovery and a secret deal that made M&M's and Hershey's family from day one. Then, the current cocoa crisis, the legal "chocolatey" loophole candy companies are using to quietly downgrade your favorite bars, the Hershey's scandal and the grandson who called it out, and the neuroscience proving your brain tastes the brand before it tastes the chocolate. 📱 Follow along on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
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  The Customer Is Always Right: Ex-Bartender Confession 07.07.2026 27мин

  "The customer is always right" wasn't a rule, it was consumer deception dressed up as a promise. In this episode, I go back to 1905 and the two department store men who invented the phrase to get you through their doors, then trace how it slowly stopped being a marketing promise and became something customers use against the workers who once benefited from it. Along the way: a call center study on what absorbing customer aggression actually does to a person, the year Selfridge's own store publicly walked the phrase back, and the piece of corporate mythology the internet invented to give a quote nobody ever said a happier ending. This is also the sassiest I've ever gotten on this show, because the personal story is mine, six years behind bars from 2006 to 2012, measured pours, and the line I used more times than I can count: "Did you want a double? I'm happy to make it a double. I can absolutely charge you for a double." It almost never got me a tip. I said it anyway. Lies We Bought is a podcast about advertising lies, branding history, and marketing deception. Hosted by Emily Rask. 📩 Sign up for exclusive emails and behind-the-scenes context: https://www.lieswebought.com/ 📱 Follow along on: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
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  Cash for Clunkers: How America Paid to Crush 700,000 Cars 30.06.2026 22мин

  The slogan that sold America on crushing 700,000 working cars, and the people who quietly paid for it.
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  Book It: The Pizza Hut Reading Program That Sold More Than Pizza 23.06.2026 24мин

  For forty years, Pizza Hut's Book It program gave kids a free personal pan pizza for reading. More than seventy million children went through it. This is the story of what that pizza was actually buying. I trace Book It! from the 1984 education panic that opened the door, through the loss-leader economics that made giving away pizza profitable, to the developmental psychology that explains why a brand wants you at age six. We cover the overjustification effect, the 1973 Stanford reward study, and James McNeal's research on lifelong brand loyalty, plus why Pizza Hut just relaunched the whole program for summer 2026 as "Summer of Stories" and who they're really targeting this time. I was a Book It kid. Hawaiian pizza, and I will not be taking questions. 📱 Follow along on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
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  Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride: How Listerine Sold a Disease 16.06.2026 25мин

  Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. The phrase sounds like it has been around forever, but it traces back to a 1925 Listerine ad built around a fictional woman named Edna and a manufactured condition called halitosis. This week I follow the phrase back to its real origin, a 1917 British music hall comedy song, and then into the hands of Gerard Lambert, the mouthwash heir who found an obscure word in a medical textbook and used it to make America afraid of its own breath. We cover Listerine's bizarre early years as a floor cleaner and surgical antiseptic, the fear formula behind the Edna campaign, the sales explosion that made Listerine the third largest print advertiser in the country, and what psychology research on social comparison and fear appeals says about why this same playbook still runs in advertising today. By the end you'll hear the phrase differently, and you'll know exactly why a mouthwash company wanted it in your head. 📱 Follow along on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/ https://www.lieswebought.com/ 
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  The Seatbelt Rule Wasn't About Saving You. It Was About Saving Money. 09.06.2026 25мин

  In 1993, North Carolina wrote four words on a sign and accidentally handed the federal government one of its most effective behavioral control tools in history. "Click It or Ticket" didn't try to convince you seatbelts were a good idea. It just changed the math. In this episode, we follow the full story: the 1959 invention of the three-point seatbelt by Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin, the patent Volvo gave away for free, Ralph Nader's 1965 book that forced the government to act, and the spectacular 1974 interlock failure that taught Washington that Americans would rather cut a seatbelt out of a car than be told what to do with it. We look at how federal highway grants turned local police departments into a coordinated national enforcement machine, what those seatbelt checkpoints were actually catching beyond unbuckled drivers, and why researchers later found that primary enforcement laws may have stopped saving lives once baseline compliance was already high, a finding that never made it onto a billboard. The science on seatbelts is real and the data is uncontested. The campaign built around that science is a masterclass in compliance-gaining strategy, targeted media buying, and the government's very deliberate decision that threatening your wallet moves faster than changing your mind. Lies We Bought is a narrative podcast that investigates the marketing psychology and corporate manipulation behind the slogans and phrases Americans grew up believing.   📱 Follow along on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
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  Small Ranchers Sued the Government Over a Beef Slogan and Lost 02.06.2026 29мин

  You've had that slogan in your head for thirty years. "Beef. It's What's For Dinner." Someone built it. Someone paid for it. And the story of who, and why, is way stranger than the commercials ever let on. In Episode 17, Emily traces how a mandatory dollar-per-head tax on every cattle sale in America built one of the most psychologically sophisticated ad campaigns in history, why small ranchers were legally forced to fund a message that undercut their own businesses, and how the U.S. Supreme Court eventually declared the whole thing was never an ad at all. It was government speech. We also get into the industry-funded nutrition research you've probably been cited at, the celebrity bypass surgery that nearly sank the campaign, and a small carrot-fed beef operation that tried to do things differently and paid for it. The food system is not what the commercials told you it was.   You can support Santa Carota here: https://www.santacarota.com/  📩 Sign up for exclusive emails and behind-the-scenes context: https://www.lieswebought.com/   📱 Follow along on: Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/ 
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  Why Vitamins and Supplements Don’t Need FDA Approval 26.05.2026 19мин

  People take supplements for energy, immunity, or because someone on TikTok said magnesium changed their life. The U.S. supplement industry is worth billions, yet many products reach store shelves without ever proving they actually work. This episode of Lies We Bought explores the legal loopholes that reshaped supplement regulation, and how marketing turned everyday pills into expensive wellness rituals.   Take Your Supplements: • The 1994 law (DSHEA) that protected supplement companies • Major retailers caught selling fake vitamins and fillers • The truth about wellness trends like collagen and greens powders • What major clinical studies say about daily multivitamins • When supplements genuinely save lives vs. when they just fill cabinets   📩 Sign up for exclusive emails and behind-the-scenes context: https://www.lieswebought.com/   📱 Follow along on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/ 
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  Lululemon, Firefighters & the Chemical Nobody Told You About 19.05.2026 23мин

  PFAS, or "forever chemicals," have been hiding in plain sight for 80 years: in nonstick pans, fast food wrappers, stain-resistant furniture, and the turnout gear worn by first responders. Now they're under investigation in Lululemon clothing, and new research shows they may be slowing firefighters' cognitive function in real time. Host Emily Rask takes this one personally. Her husband Travis is a 20-year firefighter, and in this episode she traces the full story: from a 1938 DuPont lab to a $15 billion legal reckoning, from a West Virginia farmer's dying cattle to the Texas AG's 2026 civil investigation. This is the lie that's been bought and sold for decades and it's in all of us. 📱 Follow along on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@liesweboughtLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/liesweboughtFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
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  Wheaties and the Psychology of Greatness 12.05.2026 19мин

  For nearly a century, Wheaties convinced America that greatness could start with a bowl of cereal. This week on Lies We Bought, I open the cereal box on how “The Breakfast of Champions” became one of the most successful identity-marketing campaigns created. From accidental kitchen discoveries and failing sales to celebrity athletes, psychological conditioning, and the rise of sports endorsements, the orange box transformed itself into a cultural symbol of achievement. But behind the slogan was a much stranger story involving propaganda-level advertising tactics, celebrity influence, radio marketing experiments, and a cereal brand constantly trying to survive its own identity crisis. This episode explores:• The accidental invention of Wheaties• How radio advertising saved the brand• The origin of “Breakfast of Champions”• Lou Gehrig, Ronald Reagan, and athlete endorsements• Why celebrity marketing physically changes consumer behavior• The psychology behind identity signaling and parasocial relationships• How Wheaties went from household staple to collectible nostalgia item Join my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/LiesWeBought  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
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  Controversy Sells | One-Minute What 05.05.2026 1мин

  P.T. Barnum knew people would pay to see something questionable before they would ignore it completely. This One Minute What breaks down how controversy, curiosity, and the sunk cost fallacy work together to pull you in, and why once you have paid attention, your brain starts looking for ways to justify it. Because they do not need you to like it. They just need you to look.
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  The Dark Origin of Nike's Just Do It Slogan 28.04.2026 18мин

  In 1977, a man faced a firing squad in a Utah state prison and said three words. A decade later, an ad man changed one of them and handed them to the entire world. In this episode I trace the full origin of the "Just Do It" campaign, from Phil Knight selling shoes out of a car trunk to the moment Dan Wieden pitched a line Knight famously called unnecessary. The emotional branding playbook, the Jordan deal that was three times the industry standard, the Banned campaign built around a rule Nike never actually broke, and the ecosystem trap that turns your running app into a shoe subscription you never signed up for. Plus my personal story of growing up as the kid who couldn't afford the Swoosh, and what it cost me long before I could afford it financially. Next time you lace up, you're going to hear those three words a little differently.
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  THe Ogilvy Halo Effect | One-Minute What 21.04.2026 1мин

  David Ogilvy famously said, “The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife,” and that belief shaped how modern advertising earns trust and attention. This One Minute What breaks down the halo effect and how brands use subtle signals like style, tone, and positioning to create a high class perception that makes people feel comfortable paying more. Because once something looks premium, your brain starts filling in the rest.
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  The Great Low-Fat Conspiracy of 1994 14.04.2026 17мин

  Somewhere along the way, we decided fat was the problem, and built an entire way of eating around that idea. This episode breaks down how that belief took hold, from early nutrition research to government policy to the food industry quietly reshaping what ended up on store shelves. Because what looked like a simple health shift turned into something much bigger, and a lot more profitable, than anyone realized at the time.
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  Listerine, Halitosis, & The Fake Health Crisis | One-Minute What 07.04.2026 1мин

  <p><strong>Your "morning routine" isn't a health choice - it's a series of manufactured solutions.</strong></p><p>In this episode of <em>One-Minute What</em>, we’re exposing <strong>Albert Lasker</strong>, the "Father of Modern Advertising" who realized that the easiest way to sell a product is to invent a problem first.Lasker didn't just meet consumer demand; he created <strong>shame</strong>. From turning floor cleaner into a cure for "Halitosis" to forcing orange juice onto your breakfast table to save a surplus crop, Lasker’s "Salesmanship in Print" changed the human psyche forever.</p><p>Stop buying the "Reason Why" and start seeing the sales tool. This is your <em>One-Minute What</em>.</p>
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  The Supersize Strategy: The Secret History of the Large Fry 31.03.2026 14мин

  <p><strong>You didn't want the Large fries. </strong></p><p>In this episode of <em>Lies We Bought</em>, we unpack the "Bigger is Better" business model. We explore the psychological traps that make "more" feel like the only rational choice, from fast food menus to the SUV loophole.</p><p><strong>Inside this episode:</strong></p><ul><li><strong>The Origin of "Large":</strong> How David Wallerstein invented the large fry to boost margins.</li><li><strong>The Decoy Effect:</strong> Why pricing tiers are designed to trick your brain into spending more.</li><li><strong>Unit Bias:</strong> The famous "bottomless soup" experiment and why we eat more than we need.</li><li><strong>The SUV & McMansion Era:</strong> How fuel standards and building trends doubled our lifestyle size while families shrank.</li></ul><p>"Bigger is better" isn't a natural law; it's a margin strategy. If you’ve ever upgraded for forty cents, this episode is for you.</p><p><strong>Enjoyed the episode? Drop us a review! It helps other people realize they don't need that XL soda either.</strong></p><p><br></p><p><em>P.S. This episode is the shortest one yet on purpose - because bigger isn't always better.</em></p>