POV: Cut the Deception

WASHINGTON Imagine Valerie Bertinelli munching on a jumbo burrito and fries.The image is caught on a cell phone camera and uploaded to YouTube. In no time at all, it flies around the Web.What would happen to all the Jenny Craig diehards who have been following Bertinelli's weight-loss progress?Most likely (had this example been real) they would conclude that Bertinelli is a fraud and would no longer trust the program Jenny Craig is selling.No one argues that testimonials and endorsements are an extremely effective marketing strategy. What has caught the interest of the Federal Trade Commission is the way digital technology has changed the way companies can market their goods and services to consumers. That's why it is considering getting more restrictive in its guidelines on the use of testimonials and endorsements in advertising.The FTC attached two studies with its formal request for comments on the matter in January 2007, which concluded that testimonials could communicate a product's efficacy despite disclaimers in the ads saying such results are typical for only half the consumers who use the product.Take the Bertinelli example. In her bathing suit video blog on the Jenny Craig site, it says "Valerie at week 12, already 22 pounds lighter." Then comes the small type: "Results not typical."Other factors are involved. Maybe Bertinelli has a personal trainer that she works out with five days a week.What the FTC studies suggest is that Bertinelli's persuasive tongue and shrinking body are more powerful messages than any disclaimer made in an ad. As a result, the FTC is considering guideline changes that make marketers squirm. One change would require advertisers to show evidence of what the typical results are for consumers who use a product or service.The second would make the marketer disclose those typical results in any ads.Some estimates place the cost of doing this in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per product launch. "That could be a very burdensome requirement on advertisers and it stifles speech by requiring the advertiser to say something they wouldn't ordinarily have to say," argues Tony DiResta, an advertising attorney with the law firm Reed Smith, who filed a comment letter with the FTC in March 2007 on behalf of the Association of National Advertisers.Has the ANA been asleep at the wheel for the last couple of years?If marketers are willing to spend millions of dollars advertising a product, why doesn't truth in advertising rate the extra bucks? No, that additional cost is not what makes these changes such a big deal. Rather, it is the fact that the FTC is pointing to the new social media landscape that makes this issue a potentially perilous one for advertisers.Some marketing tactics in the social media landscape are hardly desirable. Advertisers are not above hiring so-called "paid word-of-mouth operators" to push their products without disclosing such relationships to consumers. Marketers have also passed off their own marketing messages as content generated by consumers in the form of viral videos and faux blogs and Web sites.Let the buyer beware mentality just doesn't cut it with these unsavory scenarios. Nor does arguing, as the industry does, that the FTC already has the power to bring enforcement actions against the truly egregious bad actors. Has anyone checked the FTC's budget for enforcement actions? The government can't seem to give the Food and Drug Administration even enough money to ensure drug safety—and that's a life and death issue.In this new era in which technology gives consumers so much control, losing people's trust becomes a bottom-line issue for marketers. It only took one viewer filming former Virginia Governor George Allen's "macaca" moment to destroy Allen's reelection bid and any hope he had of seeking the White House in 2008.The stakes are high. Marketers need to get on the right side of this discussion. They understand the importance of positioning, and they need to position themselves in this changing digital landscape as being pro-consumer, not as slick salesmen trying to take advantage of the public's trust. Big brands should work with the FTC to come up with a solution that keeps people's trust at the top of the agenda and consumers' dollars flowing.

Brand Marketing

POV: Cut the Deception

Wendy Melillo

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Wendy Melillo