Faked Volvo Spot Drives Another Nail Into Ad Industry’s Credibility
By trying to hoodwink the public in a TV commercial, Volvo has tossed a giant lug nut into the safer-than-safe reputation that it spent years--and millions of ad dollars--crafting.
But Volvo’s advertising folly did more than scratch its own paint. Some say it may have left giant tread marks across the credibility of the entire advertising industry.
“The lesson here is, even large respected companies sometimes slip to fraudulent practices,” said Bruce Silverglade, director of legal affairs at the Washington-based advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Forget the $125,000 that Volvo spent on oh-so-apologetic ads for its blatant fudging of a car demolition in a commercial that was not labeled a demonstration. And forget the $316,250 that the Swedish car maker agreed to pay for investigative and legal costs to the group that blew the whistle--the Texas Attorney General’s Office. The ultimate cost to Volvo--and perhaps all advertisers--is public trust.
“What is in question here is one ad,” said Robert Austin, manager of public relations at Volvo of North America. Maybe so. But perhaps other questions must be asked. If trustworthy ol’ Volvo is twisting the truth in its ads, who isn’t?
Of course, Volvo is hardly the first advertiser to get caught spewing bunk. Over the past year, dozens of fraudulent advertisers have been called on the carpet by critics ranging from the Better Business Bureau to the Federal Trade Commission.
Earlier this year, Pepsico ran ads featuring Billy Crystal and Joe Montana that said Diet Pepsi beat Diet Coke in an independent taste test. All three television networks eventually dumped the ads when they were unimpressed with the test results Pepsi provided.
“There’s a flaw in the system,” said Ira Herbert, president of Coca-Cola’s North American soft drink operations. He wants the networks to work together to more closely regulate deceptive comparative advertising.
Travel ads are not immune from advertising fakery, either. Tourism British Columbia was singled out by some critics after the tourist board admitted faking some elements of a series of ads beckoning tourists to “go down to the woods.” One of its most scenic print ads--photographed in a park near Vancouver--actually used fake mist, artificial lighting and even deer carted in from a petting zoo.
“Sure it was posed,” said Bill Shilvock, director of marketing services for Tourism British Columbia. “But otherwise you’re not going to be able to photograph two deer like that unless you stood out there for 50 days.”
There is a long, sordid history to ads that deceive. In the 1960s, Colgate fudged a demonstration to make it look as if its Rapid Shave was shaving sand paper that, in fact, was nothing of the sort. In the ‘70s, Campbell Soup Co. got caught placing marbles in its soup for one of its TV ads--to make the vegetables float to the top.
Moreover, with the invention of so-called informercials in the 1980s--30-minute commercials that look like TV shows--the public was left wondering: Exactly when is an ad an ad?
Just how jaded has the public become to advertising? Well, try these numbers on for size. Roper Reports recently asked 2,000 Americans if they agreed with the statement that American business and industry hoodwink the public through advertising. Some 65% of those polled agreed. In a separate poll, only 8% of consumers questioned responded that they were “very confident” that advertising is truthful.
Ask advertisers--or their agencies--and they’ll insist that deceitful ads are really the exception. “There is so much policing of advertising that most agencies are afraid of doing misleading advertising,” said Greg Helm, president of the Los Angeles agency Stein Robaire Helm. “Of course,” Helm added, “what else would you expect to hear from an ad guy?”
Well, all Ivan Preston wants to hear is the truth.
“I suppose most advertising is honest, but advertisers try to go as close to the edge as they can,” said Preston, a professor of advertising at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “When you straddle the fence, you’re going to fall off some times.”
Preston said the federal regulators can straighten things out by making the rules on deceptive advertising clearer. “The FTC should put guidelines together instead of just making pronouncements,” he said. “If there were specific guidelines, advertisers would know how far they could go.”
But the FTC says it isn’t much interested in making a laundry list of no-nos. “Every time we define something as being bad, advertisers find a new way around it,” said Judith Wilkenfeld, assistant director of the FTC’s division of advertising practice. “As it is right now, we can challenge anything that is deceptive or that misrepresents a product.”
In that sense, the FTC has been more vigilant lately. Two years ago, the FTC had 17 lawyers in its division of advertising practice. Today it has 30. And the FTC is right now in the process of setting stricter standards for ads using nutritional claims such as “low fat.”
As a last resort, some angry consumers, and advertisers, take their cases to the Council of Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD).
The NAD, which was created by and is funded by advertisers and ad agencies, reviews about 100 cases annually. “This year is no different from any other,” said Ronald H. Smithies, vice president. “We get about the same number of complaints each year.”
But perhaps the most unusual case the bureau reviewed this year involved ads from Health & Nutrition Laboratories Inc., which promoted its weight-loss product in the mail.
The company mailed letters to thousands of homes. But many who received the letters thought they were actually receiving anonymous notes from friends. The letters appeared to have been typed by non-professionals and were sent in plain white envelopes. Inside each envelope was a favorable article about the weight-loss product that appeared to have been ripped out of a newspaper.
“This is a below-the-belt technique,” said Smithies. “Everything about it looked like it was a personal message from a friend. But it wasn’t. It was an ad.”
$6-Million Account for 900 Ad Phone Firm
For Inter/Media Group it was like 900-BIG-WIN.
The Encino firm, which specializes in creating 900 telephone number commercials, has won the $6-million direct-response advertising business for a Washington-based credit repair company, SecureCorp, said Robert Yallen, executive vice president of Inter/Media.
The TV spots will ask viewers to dial a special 900 number to receive information on how to establish an improved credit record and how to apply for a MasterCard or Visa card from SecureCorp. Those who apply must pay a $30 processing fee and deposit $500 into an escrow account that they can draw from on their credit cards.
Putting Ads in Cans Opens Ecology Debate
Sometimes--more than anything else--timing can mean the life or death of a marketing gimmick.
In these environmentally conscious times, marketers would certainly have to question the timing of the latest marketing promotion from a tiny Huntington Beach company--the Can-velope.
Can-velope? That’s right, a can with a message inside. Instead of sending letters in envelopes, why not send them in specially designed cans, poses Fred Lemberg, president of the Can Man Promotional Programs.
Advertisers can place their ads on the outside of the cans and even place their products inside. The cans, which are cardboard with aluminum tops and bottoms, cost about $2 each.
But with so many people concerned about the environment, aren’t the cans a waste of resources? “It’s a business decision,” said Lemberg. “People want to get their messages through the clutter, and I believe this will do it.”
Mr. Spock Lands an Oldsmobile Spot
The “New Generation of Olds” meets the first generation of Star Trek.
Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock on the TV series “Star Trek,” has directed his first commercial for Paramount Images, the commercial division of Paramount Pictures. The ad, created for Oldsmobile by the Chicago agency Leo Burnett, features Nimoy as an interplanetary hitchhiker being beamed into a car driven by his real-life daughter Julie.
