The FTC won't let me be

Last week I had the chance to attend a seminar entitled "Is This Ad Legal?" given by Lesley Fair, an attorney for the Federal Trade Commission. The gist of her message was, "if you see me again, you're probably in trouble," meaning we'd have screwed up by producing an ad deemed to be "unfair."

It would seem like someone like Fair (a most apros pos name, given her position) would be the enemy, but alas, she doesn't need to be. There is beauty in truth when it comes to advertising. In an industry consistently ranked near the bottom in the perceived honesty of its practitioners, there is indeed value in the truth. If I'm trying to create a successful long term campaign for anything, there is no advantage to being dishonest, I'll only feel the wrath of my customers and my competitors. As long as it's a fair game, I'm convinced I'm going to win.

Fair seemed to be all over a bunch of famous or formerly famous brands which had stretched the truth or otherwise did it injustice through omission. Why then, are there so many unfair advertisements in the media? Pretty much any ad on the web comes to mind, but how about the case of US fidelis:



This auto insurance claims to be better than the warranty on your car, and it is if by better they mean a much much bigger rip off. I looked into this after seeing the commercial featuring Rusty Wallace on ESPN over the summer. It disgusts me that any celebrity sponsor can jump onto an illegitimate company like this one (then again, you already know how I feel about celebrity endorsement in general).

Another more famous example of ads that shouldn't be allowed to exist:



A lot of people say they like these ads. The video even has a 5 rating and more than 500,000 views on YouTube. The ads are, however, misleading. Of course the site is not free. Unless an ad is clearly a public service announcement, you can probably expect that it is trying to solicit money from you. Not only is it not free, but most "customers" don't know this until their credit card is billed monthly for the chance to receive their "free" credit reports. The ad is even dishonest in it's portrayal of the characters: the lead singer of the freecreditreport.com band is Eric Violette, a French-Canadian actor who does not speak English. That bears repeating. This guy only speaks French. He doesn't even sing the super catchy songs.

Ms. Fair showed us the FTC's rendition of these commercials, theirs for AnnualCreditReport.com, the site that actually allows you to see your credit reports three times per year for free:



Beauty in truth? Yes. Good use of taxpayer money? Maybe.