The Tangled Web They Weave: Truth, Falsity, and Advertisers

by Preston, Ivan L.

• ISBN13: 9780299141905
• ISBN10: 029914190X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Summary

Ivan L. Preston, recognized as a preeminent scholar of the legal dimensions of American advertising, has written The Tangled Web They Weave for the ordinary consumer as well as for advertisers and trade regulators. His frank aim is to demonstrate how advertising can better serve its audience.
Advertising, Preston points out, is full of falsity that is quite legal. Indeed, clever presentation of lies can make advertising entertaining to consumers, and Preston provides lively examples and anecdotes of such cases. The problem with falsity in advertising, he argues, is not so much with the bald lie as it is with deception. It is in this thicket of implied claims that he shows us the dangers and indicates the need for regulatory adjustment.
Preston takes us down the slippery slope, from the high ground of honest product claims 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. The cases he describes are sometimes comic and sometimes shocking and infuriating.
Preston's agenda is not merely to cry Foul! He sees advertising as performing not only a legitimate but an important public service. It is in all our interests, therefore, to perfect and not just pillory. As he concludes, "It is the time to see a way to serve society by creating a standard of personal and corporate credibility under which all advertisers, regulators, and consumers should want to live."

Author Biography

Ivan L. Preston is professor of advertising at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Falsity in Our Lives	p. 3
How Advertising is Regulated	p. 7
The Elements of Deceptiveness Law	p. 9
How Many Consumers Must Be Deceived?	p. 12
The Sears Dishwasher Case	p. 16
Finding the Facts of Deceptiveness	p. 18
Looking Horses in Their Mouths, and Consumers in Their Heads	p. 20
The Aspercreme (Thompson Medical) Case	p. 22
Deceptive Implications	p. 29
Identifying Implications	p. 31
The Volvo Case	p. 33
The Role of Implications in Deceptiveness	p. 36
How Implications Work	p. 39
The Many Types of Implications	p. 42
The Kraft Cheese Case	p. 47
Branding and the Claims it Gives Us	p. 53
The Reason for Deceptive Claims: Branding	p. 55
How Branding Breeds Falsity: The Slippery Slope	p. 58
Selected Facts: Starting Down the Slope	p. 60
The Kroger Price Survey Case	p. 64
Minimal Facts: The Second Step	p. 67
Creating Minimal Facts	p. 71
The Infomercial Cases	p. 74
The Bottom of the Slope: Nonfact Claims	p. 77
Nonfacts: The Third Step	p. 79
Identifying Nonfacts	p. 82
How Advertisers Use Nonbrand Facts	p. 84
Nonfacts and Consumers' Perceptions of Truth and Significance	p. 88
The Dark Side of Nonfacts	p. 91
The Headache Remedy Cases: Anacin, Tylenol, Bayer, and Others	p. 94
The Old and New Views of Consumer Trusting	p. 101
Puffery: Opinion Claims to Be Distrusted	p. 103
We Need to Trust Sellers, and We Do	p. 105
Making Up Our Own Minds, and Trusting Too	p. 109
Trusting and Distrusting All Over the Slope	p. 113
What the Law Doesn't See, and the Problems That Result	p. 117
The Sunoco Gasoline Case	p. 120
The Advertisers' View of the Problems	p. 125
The Advertisers Don't See the Problems	p. 127
How They Try to Escape	p. 131
Advertisers' First Amendment Rights	p. 135
Advertisers' First Amendment Hopes for Eliminating Deceptiveness	p. 138
The Triumph Cigarette Cases	p. 141
An Alternative View That Advertisers Could Take	p. 147
The Advertisers' Principal Motivation: Avoiding Competition	p. 149
Do Advertisers Need the Slippery Slope Claims?	p. 153
The R. J. Reynolds Cigarette Case	p. 157
The Problem of B	p. 160
A More Realistic Orientation to the First Amendment	p. 165
Looking Back at the Cases	p. 168
The View That Regulators Could Take	p. 173
The Need for a Legal Solution	p. 175
The Basis for a Legal Solution in Existing Law	p. 179
An Elaboration on the Matter of Adverse Interest	p. 183
Proposals for Regulation	p. 185
Proving Reliance or Nonreliance	p. 188
What the Reliance Rule Would Allow and Disallow	p. 191
Smart and Dumb Consumers and the Reliance Rule	p. 195
The View That Consumers Could Take	p. 199
The Prospects of Consumers Helping Themselves	p. 201
What Consumers Can Do	p. 204
A Final Perspective	p. 207
References	p. 213
Index	p. 221
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