Consumers beware: adverts don’t play fair

Joshua Corvington / Contributing Writer

Deceptive advertising hurts more than just the consumer, it poisons a company and can kill a brand.

Ever since the Federal Trade Commission was established in 1914, it has been combating deceptive advertising across the board – but it has not been easy.

The obstruction facing the FTC has increased since the 1950s. From the 1970s and onward, the FTC was stymied with a downsizing of resources and staff. However, there are other consumer protection laws in place to combat deceptive ads, such as the Lanham Act which requires consumers and competitors to prove harm or likely harm.  Most states have their own laws prohibiting false adverts, as well.

Deceptive or exaggerated ads encompass any claim made by an advertiser that a consumer has no reason to believe, even if it turns out to be true.

An example of an exaggerated advert can be seen in Axe body spray commercials. These ads depict men spraying on their product and instantly becoming desirable by women.

But from experience, the body spray’s scent is so overwhelming it becomes more off-putting than appealing.

False and deceptive ads hurt companies and consumers. They can lead to lawsuits, cost companies millions, as well as directly harm consumers by omitting critical facts. A prime example of this were tobacco ads in the United States.

Tobacco companies made smoking seen more attractive and fashionable, without revealing any negative side effects. It took decades of studies and a lot of money to remove these ads. The tobacco industry continues to find loopholes in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, however, they have since had to bear the expense of numerous lawsuits from the harmful side effects that they failed to mention.

Another example of deceptive advertising involves hotel photo adverts on websites and pamphlets.

According to the hotel investigation website Oyster.com, hotel photo adverts crop and alter images to make hotels look better than they actually do.

Oyster took the initiative to take their own photos and compare them to the hotels’ photo adverts. The Aqua Hotel on South Beach, for example, had a pool advert that showed a stretched image of their pool, making it look bigger. Hotel 91 in Chinatown, New York City, attempts to distance itself from its actual location in the heart of Chinatown, with a misleading description that reads, “the hotel is only a few steps away from places like Little Italy, SoHo and Wall Street.”

Perhaps the most deceiving was a photo showing serene and isolated beaches at a hotel, when in reality people flock to that location all the time — making it anything but isolated.

In an article posted in 2011, Business Insider posted 14 false advertising scandals that led to the tarnishing of various brands’ reputations. One example is Dannon’s Activia brand yogurt.

Dannon was indicted in a class action lawsuit that left the company having to pay up to $45 million in damages to consumers who sued over its claims of more nutritional benefits than that of regular yogurt.

Another was by car manufacturers Hyundai and KIA, caught misrepresenting and overstating the horsepower in their vehicles. This resulted in a class action lawsuit in southern California which made them pay an estimated $75 to $125 billion.

Then there are my personal favorites: movie and video game trailers.

Movie trailers tend to be misleading, often showing off only what the marketing team believes to be a selling feature for moviegoers. This can fool people into thinking they’re going to see a completely different movie, especially if the focus is put on one aspect in a trailer. For instance, a trailer will show a funny scene of a film, but then you come to find out it is not a comedy movie but rather a drama.

Game trailers are often notorious for using computer generated scenes to increase hype, without showing gameplay. They hardly use a ‘not representative of actual gameplay’ blurb flashing across the screen for two seconds to inform players the trailer is not how the game is.

Florida law states that consumer fraud – the practice of deceiving consumers on any part of the advertising, marketing, selling and provision of services and goods – can be dealt with in individual lawsuits via a consumer rights attorney or class action lawsuits. Other avenues can be found via the FTC website at ftc.gov.

The advice I can offer to you as a consumer is: do not believe the claims made by advertisers wholeheartedly. Read reviews on products, fact check and critically analyze what you see in the media.

Be aware of your vulnerability and keep in mind the old adage: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

-opinion@fiusm.com

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