The advertising world has been plagued with “testimonials” like this. Just a little too good to be true. The Federal Trade Commission has issued on-going guidelines about ads like this in an effort to protect a sometimes gullible public from themselves.
What about the small business owner who has some customers who have had good results with her product or service who wants to “crow” a little about their success?
As of December 1, you could be risking jail time if you don’t do it by the book.
The FTC has issued new and more stringent guidelines about consumer endorsements that affect all advertising in all media including the internet.
- An “endorser” must be a real customer. If he’s not, a ” paid actor” disclaimer must be used. That’s pretty obvious.
- Any claims made by an “endorser” must have “competent and reliable scientific evidence” that they are indeed real. OK. We get that.
- If an endorser’s experience is not typical and representative of what consumers will generally achieve, the ad must clearly disclose the typical and expected performance and must substantiate it. Now we’re getting a little sticky.
- Disclaimers like “Results not typical” and “These testimonials are based on experiences of a few people and you are not likely to have similar results” are no longer considered effective by the FTC and will no longer prevent an ad from being considered deceptive. They did their own research and came to this new conclusion.
The sticky wicket: how does a business owner easily determine “typical results”, especially if there’s a lot of consumer freedom in how your product or service is used?
How do you feel about this?
There a lot more to these FTC guidelines that all small business owners need to know. Keep watching here for more or check it out for yourself at www.ftc.gov/bcp/index.shtml.
