Advertisers playing fast & loose with their info

Feathers

It seems like loads of ads & product info get away with 'bending the truth' too much.

The worst is ISPs — that you can claim to have 50mbps speeds even though you can 100% guarantee no-one will actually get this is crazy. It'd be like going into a restaurant & ordering an 8oz steak, getting a little sliver out on the plate & getting told, "Did you not read the small print? The 8oz steak is split between all our customers who order steak in a night".

& then you've things like the labelling on food. Coke has nutritional information on a 500ml bottle that says it's something like 26% of your RDA for sugar, then in the small print it says that a bottle is 2 servings! Who do you know who buys a 500ml bottle & then splits it with someone else? Or saves the rest for the next day.

I hate things like this, don't know why these type of things aren't stamped out — the whole point of nutritional info is to inform customers, these guys are clearly trying to subvert that, but the advertising standards do nothing about it.

Any others you've come across that you thought were a bit cheeky? & do you think advertisers should be made conform, or is it up to individuals to make sure they read the small print on everything properly?

Mint Aero

Sure everyone knows 250ml is a serving.

Wacker The Attacker

Isnt that what advertising is supposed to do.

Make something appear better than it really is

Cee-Jay-Cee

The reason I never read labels and don't watch or look at advertisements. I live my life in ignorant bliss.

Feathers

Wacker The Attacker wrote: »

Isnt that what advertising is supposed to do.

Make something appear better than it really is

So just put complete lies & then correct yourself in the small print & you're good to go?

Wacker The Attacker

Feathers wrote: »

So just put complete lies & then correct yourself in the small print & you're good to go?

Pretty much

kneemos

Feathers wrote: »

So just put complete lies & then correct yourself in the small print & you're good to go?

There's strict guidelines regarding advertising afaIk,it's clever wording rather than lies.

suicide_circus

http://www.alphaila.com/articles/failure/fast-food-false-advertising-vs-reality/

Feathers

kneemos wrote: »

There's strict guidelines regarding advertising afaIk,it's clever wording rather than lies.

Hmm, it's deliberately misleading though. Most people who sign up to internet connections don't know what contention rates are, they think they're getting a good deal.

& the whole idea of having large format nutritional info was meant to be so people didn't have to read the small print on the back.