What, is it Christmas already?
It certainly appears to be Official Wake-up Call Week, first for the obesity scaremongers and now for the advertising industry.
Turns out the Federal Trade Commission is as scornful of the usual “Results Not Typical” caveat as the rest of us, and are making a few changes to their Product Endorsement guidelines.
You can wade through the past, present and future of the Endorsement Guidelines in the Federal Register if you like, but according to Richard Cleland, a spokesperson and official-jargon-translator for the FTC,* some of the new guidelines are as follows:
•Consumer testimonials would have to be substantiated and ads would have to include generally expected results. Endorsers, not just advertisers, could be held liable for deceptive claims.
In other words, the results advertised better damend well be typical. And if you agree to be an after picture for Snake Oil Super Trim, you’d better be doing more than sucking in your stomach and smiling.
•Celebrities who talk up a product in an interview must disclose if they are getting paid for the promotion. Celebrities who endorse products would have to disclose if they have an ownership interest.
We all know you’re getting paid, anyway, so let’s cut out the air of altruistic devotion here. You can always say you believe in a product so much you invested in it, or that you wouldn’t shill for just any company.
•Expert endorsers, like doctors, must have experience in the product area they are endorsing. If they don’t, the limits of their expertise must be stated. For instance, an ophthalmologist identified only as a doctor could not be portrayed as an expert physician endorsing a hearing aid.
Remember the ‘artificial heart inventor’ who recommended Liptor? This one’s for you, babe. I just hope the Dyson vacuum cleaner guy is real, or the last of my trust will be completely shattered.
•Bloggers who get free products and then endorse them on their blogs would have to make it clear they got the products free.
Oh, um, hey now, there’s no point in going overboard . . .
Seriously, though, the advertisers are complaining that they won’t be able to devise effective campaigns if they have to admit that the Dream offered by products is an Impossible one. Jeez, that’s too bad. But I guess that beats believing all those carefully worded non-promises of yours and agreeing that it’s our fault that nothing ever works and hating ourselves even more for the flaws you said we have, so we grasp at anything that will give us the hopes of the happiness that you defined for us in the first place . . . nope. On second thought, zero sympathy.
So, I’m wondering if this would be the right time to try a HAES commercial.
HAES works, and the results are certainly typical. We could ask the gang over at Shapely Prose to write it, Joy Nash to direct (and star), and make it number one on YouTube, which should get it on a couple of cable commentary shows—we could send the tape to Oprah and hope for the best.
Who’s with me?
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*As reported by
Tags: advertisements, dieting, FTC, HAES, truth
March 28, 2009 at 3:53 am |
I am always in support of laws which forces truth over hype. Does that mean we have to take sex craving, scantily clad women out of beer commercials?
March 28, 2009 at 5:02 am |
Only if they won’t sign affidavits that they are indeed exhibitionist nymphomaniacs with a bent towards habitually drunken, overaged former frat boys.
The radio station that I grew up listening to had a great fake beer commerical that had the catchphrase, “If you want a beer real bad, we’ve got a real bad beer.” Perhaps they were visionary . . .
March 28, 2009 at 8:46 am |
Doesn’t Duff Beer use something like that?
March 28, 2009 at 10:45 am |
That’s the beer on The Simpsons, right? If it doesn’t, it probably should.
But I think I first heard the ‘Bad beer’ line when I was in high school, which would be about twenty years ago . . .