We've always hated those ads for pain medication or heartburn relief pills, since they always turn the human body into something that's lit on fire to explain just where the pain is, and how it can be extinguished. Windows salesman Jerry Seinfeld noticed it to, and produced a skit about it. Turns out, it's not just the over-the-counter pharmaceutical industry that's relying on this ad gimmick — but the hip- and joint-replacement industry.

Though they've glammed things up a bit.

Rather than light up the parts of your body that need soothing, Smith & Nephew are using bolts of lightening normally reserved for hip pain to show you all the new levels of excitement you'll have from your artificial joint.

Clever tactic, and super space-age. Except it's not too likely that the average customer looking at joint replacement surgery — the sept- and octogenarian set — plans to hit the double black diamonds anytime soon.

[AdFreak]