10 of Our Favorite Recent False Advertising Incidents
July 9th, 2007 by danAll marketers are liars, sure, but there are your run of the mill vaguely deceptive campaigns and then there are the whoppers. The lies so blatant someone actually gets sued for misleading or false advertising. It takes a special kind of company and ad agency to pull that off, here are a few of our favorites from recent memory (Click on the company name in pink for more information about each case):
Carrefour
The second biggest retail chain in the world (only WalMart is bigger) was recently fined millions for false advertising, including false pricing.
XM Radio
The satellite radio company was recently sued because of deceptive ads that say the network does not run commercials.
Microsoft vs Palm
Microsoft was accused by the FTC of lying about the usability of palm devices that competed with its own products.
Nike
Nike was accused of lying about conditions in their factories overseas. California’s supreme court agreed.
Splenda
Splenda has long tried to mislead consumers into equating their false “made from sugar” strapline with a safe and healthy product. The long term effects of Splenda are still not known and the company was sued for false advertising.
Shell Oil Company
Shell was told by the Dutch government to stop saying the byproducts of their petroluem products are used to “grow flowers”.
GlaxoSmithKline
GSK was sued in Australia for lying about the Vitamin C content of one of their products.
Dow Chemical
A subsidiary of Dow was sued for lying about the saftey of one of their pesticide products.
Jamster
Falsely marketed ringtones to children by calling them “free” in television commercials but charging the kids when they downloaded them.
Philip Morris (now Altria)
Sued for lying about the health dangers and addictive properties of its products.
We’d love to hear about your favorite false ads if we’ve left them off our list, so post ‘em.
Minor correction, GlaxoSmithKline were fined in New Zealand for misleading advertisements. Discovered by teenage girls doing a science project, no less.Australia != New Zealand
Joseph said this on July 9th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Shell uses petrolium byproducts to “grow flowers”? That’s almost as bad as the nutritional value of wonderbreat!
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SearchRoads » sailor moon topless 10 of Our Favorite Recent False Advertising Incidents said this on July 9th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
RE: GSK
Did you even read the article? This happened in New Zealand, not Australia. As much as I wish AU and NZ were the same country (we in Australia could certainly use a dose of New Zealand’s not-so-conservative government), they’re not!
Schmidty said this on July 9th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
RE: GSK happened in NZ first but also led to action in Australia.
Ben said this on July 9th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
One of my favorite lies lately is the title of this article. These can’t be your favorites, they are all fucking boring as hell.
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Cartoons Fans Lounge said this on July 9th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
lol Jamster and all those ring tone ones are a scam, they have fine print intended to weasel children and teens into texting the service only to later on find out that they’ve committed to a legally binding contract (contract is legal even to minors, it’s a loophole uncovered by International law). The contracts usually involve something like 2-5 messages a day at $2 a message and a minimum subscription time of a 2-3 weeks, that’s a minimum of $56 dollars from just one subscriber! Jamster, Glomobi, the list goes on of cell phone scammers.
Online TV said this on July 9th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Splenda IS actually made from sugar through halogenation.
Anon said this on July 9th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Splenda IS NOT made from sugar. At least not the sugar you think of as sugar. Its corn syrup or fructose, something like that.
me said this on July 9th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Splenda is made from sucrose, or “table sugar,” so it is not made from corn syrup, which can be glucose or fructose. The chemical name of Splenda is sucralose, which reveals its origins.
Anon said this on July 9th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Echhh…Splenda is derived from sugar, it is called sucralose, but it does not use “sugar” as an ingredient in the same way as a cake uses sugar…but it is really splitting hairs here…the lawsuit against splenda is pure 100% PR bullshit.
Joey Diggs said this on July 10th, 2007 at 2:47 am
Splenda is actually made by removing part of a complex sugar m0olecule, and then replacing it with a chlorine molecule, it starts from A sugar, but nor from cane sugar or beet sugar, which is mostly what people are used to. It has less chlorine than table salt does (NaCl = 50%) So while the assertion that splenda is made from sugar, is true, it is misleading, which is the Sugar Association’s complaint. Although the sugar association fails to mention that Splenda is many times sweeter than sugar, and really has no reason to be considered unhealthy, despite the Sugar Association’s campaign to remind people that chlorinbe is used in swimming pools, but not mentioning that it is half of all the salt people eat.
Sabriand said this on July 10th, 2007 at 3:28 am
Ahhh, Cult of the Amateur in full swing. You hit Splenda for false advertising, and cite, and cite nothing but, MERCOLA!? Mercola is the shock jock of the docs. Unsubstantiated, poorly referenced sensationalism at its best. Why don’t you use Wikipedia as a primary source while you’re at it, too? Though I guess you’ve come pretty close by citing Engadget — not once, but TWICE — in your piece. Citizen journalism, I cry for you.
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