Comparative advertising can be an effective marketing tool to tout product benefits vs. competitors, but consumers shouldn’t need to read confusing fine print disclaimers and whip out their calculators to understand the ad claims. This was the lesson of a recent decision involving competitive drinkable…
We blogged last week about a recent National Advertising Division case involving a Kimberly-Clark ad campaign that illustrated the well-known NAD maxim: “an advertiser is responsible for all reasonable interpretations of its claims, not simply the messages it intended to convey.” The decision also serves…
Almost every NAD case begins with the maxim: It is well-established that an advertiser is responsible for all reasonable interpretations of its claims, not simply the messages it intended to convey. It follows that advertisers must choose their words very, very carefully to avoid unsubstantiated…
Comparative advertising can be highly effective in touting the advantages of a company’s products against those of its competitor, but the language used must be carefully crafted and accompanying visual depictions should be examined to determine if they convey an unintended message about the scope…
Last week we blogged about a recent decision of the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau, holding that two YouTube videos for Rayovac brand batteries misleadingly communicated an unsupported “line” claim of superiority against all Energizer batteries. This post will discuss a second…
Two recent decisions of the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau provide helpful insights into how product performance comparisons should (and should not) be crafted to be considered fair comparative advertising against competitors. The first decision, Spectrum Brands, Inc. (Case #6012 Oct. 26,…
An advertising slogan like “A Diamond is Forever” may be eternal, but the same cannot be said about some comparative advertising claims. If a company advertises its product as superior to a competitive product, the ad claim may need to be re-assessed and potentially modified…
In theory, a product brand name can communicate a false advertising message, but it doesn’t happen often in practice. Such an instance was found to have occurred according to a recent decision by the National Advertising Division in which it concluded that the name Painter’s…
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