False Advertising- Christopher Ruelas

Introduction

False advertising is a very broad term and can be seen as many different things to many people.  But for the purpose of this post, false advertising is the use of unproven or misleading information to market a product to consumers.  This I feel is a topic that everyone at some point in their life has experienced.   

Research

As stated earlier false advertising is a broad term and because of this, deciding if a product is being purposely misleading is very subjective in some cases.  A defense that most producer use to justify that their product is not being falsely advertised is a term called puffery.  Puffing is the act of purposely exaggerating a products value by means of using opinion rather than fact.  An example of this would be small family restaurant advertising they have the "world's best french fries".  Because the word "best" is subjective, what they are claiming is not technically illegal.  The reason for this not being illegal is that in most cases people understand that such claim is obviously not true or is being purposely humorous. 

The fast food industry often walks the fine line of false advertisement.  This is mostly seen in the advertisement of the actual food products.  An example of this would be the McDonald's Big Mac.  It is almost never the case that an in store bought McDonald's Big Mac looks anything like what is advertised.  Over the years companies like McDonald's have come under fire for this but it seems they are able to get away with it.  The logic behind is that once again they are not doing anything that is technically illegal.  In the case of food advertisements, they simply need to make sure that all the ingredients and their correct quantities are present in the advertisement.  Fast food companies hire food stylists to prepare the same amount of ingredients, that one would buy in a store, into the perfect burger you see in the advertisement.  This often leads to the advertised food being inedible as all the condiments are one side of the burger or it may not even be thoroughly cooked in order to achieve the desired look.  This means that what you get at the actual are store and what you see on TV are on paper the same product, therefore it has not false been advertised and is then not illegal. 

  

In more recent years one major company was punished for it use of false advertisement.  The energy drink company Red Bull was sued for falsely advertising that their product "gives you wings".  Because this is such a clear statement and the fact that in the TV advertisements characters are seen drinking Red Bull than proceeding to growing wings, Red Bull was not able to use puffery as a defense.  They lost the lawsuit and paid out $13 millions to costumers.  After the lawsuit Red Bull now uses "wiiings" as that is not a real word therefore it is a more clear act of puffery.  

Reference

"Truth In Advertising." Federal Trade Commission. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.


"When Is It False Advertising or Just Puffing?" Hg.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.


Little, Katie. "Why Fast Food Doesn't Look like the Ads." CNBC. CNBC, 19 May 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.

Duggan, Oliver. "$13m Lawsuit Proves Red Bull Doesn't Give You Wings." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 11 Oct. 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2016.

Personal

As I have said, I believe that false advertising has affected everyone at least once in their lives and I am no exception.  When I was younger, I would get sick as the seasons changed and one year a product called Airborne came out.  Airborne claimed to have been invented by a school teacher who was tired of getting sick and it would help prevent anyone who used it from getting sick. I used this product for many years believing it to have a positive effect on my immune system as it claimed.  Later it turned out that Airborne had not medical evidence to back any of its claims.  In 2008 they were sued by the Federal Trade Commission for $30 million and lost.  

Being a person who enjoy video games, I have become increasingly weary.  With the video game industry becoming larger then Hollywood, attaining high profits are the end goal.  This has led to some questionable advertisement of certain video games.  I know that my friends and myself are starting to become more and more let down by video games, as they are marketed one way but than play in another.  This has led to me becoming far more skeptical when deciding to buy a game.  As a gamer this is sad as it has conditioned me to almost never be excited for a new game as to not be let down if does not meet expectations set forth by the advertising.      

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