Tangled Web They Weave: Truth, Falsity, & Advertisers

by Ivan L. Preston

University of Wisconsin Press, 1996
Cloth: 978-0-299-14190-5 | Paper: 978-0-299-14194-3
Library of Congress Classification KF1614.P74 1994
Dewey Decimal Classification 343.73082

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Written for the ordinary consumer as well as for advertisers and trade regulators, this book aims to demonstrate how advertising can better serve its audience. Ivan Preston takes us down the slippery slope, from the high ground of honest product information to the unscrupulous bottom-of-the-barrel claims that are wholly false. Along the way he documents the subtle misrepresentations, half and lesser truths, and exploitations of our gullibility that abound in contemporary advertising.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Ivan L. Preston is the Journal Communications–Heyse Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has been honored three times by the American Academy of Advertising, including serving as its president. An expert witness and author of numerous articles on advertising law, he is the author of The Great American Blow-Up: Puffery in Advertising and Selling, also published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

REVIEWS

“A stimulating examination of ads, cases, and rulings that leads us to think about how regulation might be changed in the future. The book will inform students and practitioners on all sides of the issues, while challenging them with some proposals sure to be controversial.”—William L. Wilkie, University of Notre Dame

“In this fascinating examination of contemporary ‘ad-speak,’ Preston reveals the logical tricks behind familiar ads and reviews their legal status. He then goes on to argue for a ‘revolutionary’ new standard for advertising, saying that ads should be constructed in such a way that consumers can rely on their content.”—Robert Herrmann, former President, American Council on Consumer Interest

“[Preston] meticulously dismantles advertisers’ arsenal of dirty tricks: implied but spurious claims, ‘minimal facts’ promoted as significant, puffery, infomercials disguised as news programs, and empty ‘nonfacts’ vaunting a brand’s superiority over all others. . . . A potent handbook for consumers awash in misinformation.”—Publishers Weekly

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Falsity in Our Lives

PART 1
HOW ADVERTISING IS REGULATED

1
The Elements of Deceptiveness Law

2
How Many Consumers Must Be Deceived?

3
The Sears Dishwasher Case

4
Finding the Facts of Deceptiveness

5
Looking Horses in Their Mouths, and Consumers in Their Heads

6
The Aspercreme (Thompson Medical) Case

PART 2
DECEPTIVE IMPLICATIONS

7
Identifying Implications

8
The Volvo Case

9
The Role of Implications in Deceptiveness

10
How Implications Work

11
The Many Types of Implications

12
The Kraft Cheese Case

PART 3
BRANDING AND THE CLAIMS IT GIVES US

13
The Reason for Deceptive Claims: Branding

14
How Branding Breeds Falsity: The Slippery Slope

15
Selected Facts: Starting Down the Slope

16
The Kroger Price Survey Case

17
Minimal Facts: The Second Step

18
Creating Minimal Facts

19
The Infomercial Cases

PART 4
THE BOTTOM OF THE SLOPE: NONFACT CLAIMS

20
Nonfacts: The Third Step

21
Identifying Nonfacts

22
How Advertisers Use Nonbrand Facts

23
Nonfacts and Consumers' Perceptions of Truth and Significance

24
The Dark Side of Nonfacts

25
The Headache Remedy Cases: Anacin, Tylenol, Bayer, and Others

PART 5
THE OLD AND NEW VIEWS OF CONSUMER TRUSTING

26
Puffery: Opinion Claims to Be Distrusted

27
We Need to Trust Sellers, and We Do

28
Making Up Our Own Minds, and Trusting Too

29
Trusting and Distrusting All Over the Slope

30
What the Law Doesn't See, and the Problems That Result

31
The Sunoco Gasoline Case

PART 6
THE ADVERTISERS' VIEW OF THE PROBLEM

32
The Advertisers Don't See the Problems

33
How They Try to Escape

34
Advertisers' First Amendment Rights

35
Advertisers' First Amendment Hopes for Eliminating Deceptiveness

36
The Triumph Cigarette Cases

PART 7
AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW THAT ADVERTISERS COULD TAKE

37
The Advertisers' Principal Motivation: Avoiding Competition

38
Do Advertisers Need the Slippery Slope Claims?

39
The R. J. Reynolds Cigarette Case

40
The Problem of B—

41
A More Realistic Orientation to the First Amendment

42
Looking Back at the Cases

PART 8
THE VIEW THAT REGULATORS COULD TAKE

43
The Need for a Legal Solution

44
The Basis for a Legal Solution in Existing Law

45
An Elaboration on the Matter of Adverse Interest

46
Proposals for Regulation

47
Proving Reliance or Nonreliance

48
What the Reliance Rule Would Allow and Disallow

49
Smart and Dumb Consumers and the Reliance Rule

PART 9
THE VIEW THAT CONSUMERS COULD TAKE

50
The Prospects of Consumers Helping Themselves

51
What Consumers Can Do

52
A Final Perspective

References

Index

REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you with an electronic file for alternative access.

Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.

It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.

See other books on: Advertising | Advertising & Promotion | Advertising laws | Deceptive advertising | Truth
See other titles from University of Wisconsin Press

Nearby on shelf for Law of the United States / Federal law. Common and collective state law. Individual states: