Ad Watchdog Says Ad Videos (Viral Or Not) Need To Obey Truth-In-Advertising Rules
from the what-about-satire? dept
A few months ago, you may recall that there was a semi-popular "viral"video going around, showing a group of friends sitting around a table with mobile phones. They put the phones in the middle of a table surrounding a corn kernel, and then dialed the phones and watched the corn pop. This got some buzz, and a quick debate over whether or not it was real. It seemed rather obviously fake (and, in many ways, similar to another fake video from earlier about cooking an egg with mobile phones), but some people were tricked. About a week after the video became popular, a bluetooth headset manufacturer admitted to creating the video to try to sell more handsfree kits.Now, the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has slapped the company on the wrist, noting that even though it was just an online viral video PR stunt, such videos should still live up to various "truth-in-advertising" standards. The LA Times story on this gets the details wrong, suggesting that it was only when this report came out that it was revealed that the video came from a bluetooth handset maker. That's not the case, as the company admitted it was a viral video about a week after it became famous.
Still, while I understand the reasoning for why truth-in-advertising should apply to viral videos, I'm not entirely convinced it makes sense in this case, where the video itself wasn't an actual advertisement -- and the only time people discovered that it was an advertisement was in conjunction with the revelation that it was a hoax. While perhaps some people were fooled initially into believing the video was real, it's difficult to see that video alone (which didn't mention hands free kits) driving people to using hands free kits. If anything, someone who believe the video would probably just use their phone less entirely, rather than switching to a hands-free kit. I definitely believe truth-in-advertising rules make sense, but it's not entirely clear how this was false advertising, rather than a hoax to generate discussion.
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Filed Under: truth in advertising, viral videos
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I think it better there be absolute standards in this case. Companies should have to be truthful in any form of advertising.
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I think the mistake you're making is claiming it was not an "actual advertisement." It was an actual advertisement in that it was intended to sell a product. Merely because it was very creative and subtle does not change that fact.
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I Agree Too
Bring back the rattan I say!
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What about REAL adverts?
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Re: What about REAL adverts?
Its like saying a can of coke is $1 with $500 worth of included beverage.
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Re: What about REAL adverts?
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Firstly, this kind of stuff pisses me off in general. I guarantee that someone, somewhere, has been using that video as "evidence" of how dangerous mobile phones are and spreading it around friends and family. Helping to perpetuate crazy theories like that piss me off immensely.
Secondly, it was an advert that essentially said "Man, look how bad the competitors are, you should use us!" except the "look how bad they are" part was made up. Ok so it's not a particularly raging example, but still, they're saying "if you put a mobile near your head it'll cook your brain use our product instead". If this was allowed to go on without checks, in a few years we'd be seeing viral ads like a kid home-video'd drinking coke and coming down with some disease or something, put out by pepsi (yes I realise it's an extreme example).
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Generally Agree
Except on your second point, Anonymous Coward.
At no point did the Viral Video ever say "use our product instead"
All in all though, it is a coniving prank played by an advertsing company, the dreggs of society - and all actions by such corporations must be regulated.
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Re: Generally Agree
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Re: Re: What about REAL adverts?
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Hard to Imagine
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Moron in a hurry
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I'm hungry
I have to wonder about this. So we're saying that ad agencies have to be regulated as to what videos they distribute online.
But what about the other viral pieces of fake information distributed online? How many emails do we get forwarded from family and friends about some amazing or outrageous "fact" that's debunked with a 5-second search on Snopes.com?
Did this ad agency even come up with the concept that cell phones can pop popcorn? Or did someone just "hear" that from someone else and decide to write that into an email and forward that to 100 of their closest friends? What if some random person took that email and decided to make a video out of it, and then the ad agency got the whole idea from a pre-existing video? What if they just used the "amateur" video? Where's the line of when it becomes an "ad", if the core message never changed?
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Two issues
We have two issues here. The first is being an ad or not.
It's still an ad, and more dishonest for not being clear about it.
The second is the whole issue of the hoax.
If people are being tricked, it's not obviously fake. Anyone about to argue that the the hoax is harmless fun (and I can't tell for sure whether Mr. Masnick does or not), please check out What's the Harm?.
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