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Lies We Bought: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Emily Rask
Lies We Bought is a podcast that traces advertising lies and marketing deception back to where they started. Host Emily Rask spent over a decade building marketing and advertising campaigns, and now she's reading the fine print out loud (think everything from "got milk?" to "clean beauty") to show how the message got made and why we believed it. Part branding history, part consumer psychology, part 1950s wink. If you love smart, myth-busting shows about advertising, branding, and the hidden tricks behind the stuff you buy, you're in the right place.
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 5 days ago19 min
Made in USA: Only 11% of What You Buy Actually Is
The "Made in USA" label feels like a promise. Legally, it's a lot looser than you think, and the amount of stuff that can actually earn it has been shrinking for decades. This episode traces the label from an 1887 British shame tactic to a company that invented its own percentage, to Walmart's founder writing a memoir called "Made in America" while his own company helped build the overseas supply chain the label exists to warn you about. 📩 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/
- 1 weeks ago16 min
Extended Warranty: The Fine Print Industry Built on Fear
Extended warranties aren't insurance. Legally, they can't even use the word. They're "service contracts," a separate category with none of the payout rules that protect you when real insurance is on the line, and that one distinction explains almost the entire industry. This episode traces how a fringe product from the 1950s turned into the reason a TV or a refrigerator costs the same everywhere you shop, why the pitch always lands at the very end of checkout and never before, and why the industry keeps growing every year no matter how many times consumer advocates warn people off it. 📱 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/
- 2 weeks ago19 min
Guess What Day Is It?: The Line That Took Over Wednesdays
Every Wednesday, GEICO's camel asks what day it is. The original ad that made that question famous racked up more than 16 million views on YouTube and then disappeared, with no explanation ever given. This episode debunks the corporate mythology built up around hump day, including a water-cooler legend at DuPont that's been misdated for years, and traces the phrase back through a 1959 dictionary citation to a 2011 psychology study showing motivation doesn't actually peak in the middle of the week the way the phrase assumes. **Show notes on Patreon** 📱 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/
- 3 weeks ago17 min
The Fake Wealth Marketing Trap: Kardashians & Influencer Culture
The phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" comes from a 1913 comic strip drawn by a cartoonist who nearly went broke trying to match his wealthy neighbors and the Joneses themselves never once appeared in it. This episode covers where the phrase came from, how mid-century advertisers like Chevrolet used it directly in ad copy, how the same mechanism scaled into influencer marketing and social media, and what the psychological research says about what constant comparison actually costs people. 📱 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/
- Aug 18, 202622 min
Morton Salt: The "Clump-Free" Marketing Ploy That Changed Food History
Morton Salt's slogan started as a promise about clumping, not a warning about bad luck, and somehow it became both. This episode traces salt from ancient currency and empire-building to the umbrella girl on your kitchen shelf, then follows the same trick a hundred years forward into the pink Himalayan salt aisle. 📱 Follow along on: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/
- Aug 11, 202616 min
Expiration Dates Don’t Mean What You Think
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/
- Aug 4, 202621 min
An Apple a Day: How a Dying Industry Rebranded Itself
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/
- Jul 28, 202622 min
The War on Drugs Ad That Lied to America
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/
About Lies We Bought
Lies We Bought is a podcast that traces advertising lies and marketing deception back to where they started. Host Emily Rask spent over a decade building marketing and advertising campaigns, and now she's reading the fine print out loud (think everything from "got milk?" to "clean beauty") to show how the message got made and why we believed it. Part branding history, part consumer psychology, part 1950s wink. If you love smart, myth-busting shows about advertising, branding, and the hidden tricks behind the stuff you buy, you're in the right place.
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