'Truth' in Advertising

Every time I hear this phrase, it causes me to emit a little girlish laughter at such a concept.  Advertising by its nature is a form of deceit.  When you really boil it down, advertising is just the art of tricking someone to buy your service or product through the use of aesthetics, ideologies, promises, etc.  It's all about understanding your target audience and creating an advertisement that caters so well to them that they'll feverishly lap of every last bit of what your selling.

 HOWEVER, that phrase is an important one.  A very important one; especially to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission).  The government run department dictates that:

• Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;
• Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and
• Advertisements cannot be unfair.

And while there are further clarifications that are state specific, those are word for word the descriptions we have to work under (there are of course a few small  clarifications however).  All things considered that's pretty vague for the most part, but it prevents people from outright lying in their advertisements with tag lines such as "Amazo-Glue will fix your marriage!"
It's really all about spin.  You can say that without actually saying that.  For example, you COULD say: "Amazo-Glue, Fixing Problems since 19XX".  You're dancing around a blatant lie by being a little vague. What kinds of problems does it fix exactly? Marital problems? Mechanical? What?  And you could even go so far as to use the original concept in your marketing campaign to a degree by featuring an arguing couple or something that eludes to what you wanted to say at the start. (keep in mind this is an exaggerated example)

The point of this quick and dirty entry is pretty much just to say what is an unspoken law.  A law known far and wide in advertising.  A law most of us see every day, but rarely think about.  The law of spin and when you break that law down, it's not so much Truth in Advertising as it is 'Truth' in Advertising.

Posted in: advertising, law