Mathematical Pet Peeve #1: the equals sign

Here is the first in a list of abuses of mathematics that I will occasionally see that bothers me, in no particular order.

Have you ever seen an ad that has some sort of bogus equation in it? I am talking about things like:

• You + lower mortgage rates = 1 happy camper.
• splenda + olestra = healthy snack.
• Teo Leone + George Wendt = awesome TV show.
• high mileage + tonnes of horse power = 1 killer ride.
  

I have two qualms with this sort of advertising:

1. All ads are lies. By using the equals sign in this context, you deny it it's true meaning. I hope that people don't actually think that these equals signs are valid.
2. These equations aren't even true. You can't add summands with disparate terms and expect a neat answer unless you have defined some custom form of addition (in which case using the equals sign is bad form), when you clearly haven't. Perhaps this would be a better equation:
   
   define a function TV from the space of arbitrary sets of actors into the space of the quality of television sitcoms. Then TV({Teo Leone, George Wendt}) = A good T.V. show.
   
   Of course, I still don't think that this is a good equation. Refer to #1.

I think that the idiocy of these ad campaigns is by design, and that it is meant to cause people to stop and reexamine the message because of the faulty mathematics involved. This is similar to the ads with. random; punctuation, between... words.

No one ever accused marketers of not being crafty, but at least we can accuse them of being dishonest in one more way.