Isn’t it misleading consumers? How would you even be able to prove that you were #1 in lawn care or in dish washing, it just seems like a bunch of statistics that might not actually be true. During school, I was pretty sure there were laws that said you couldn’t mislead people (although it might have just been for credit companies) and I don’t understand how it’s allowed.
In: Economics
Because it is true or hyperbole.
> How would you even be able to prove that you were #1 in lawn care or in dish washing
If you look closer at the ad they will typically cite on what basis they are making that claim. Usually it is some sort of commercial rating group you have never heard of.
Anyone can rate companies, and bragging about the rating they give you is perfectly legal. You can have multiple companies which are all rated number one in the country for the same thing by different people.
The legal system in the US refers to these kinds of statements as “puffery”, and no one cares because it is just taken for granted that they are unsupported statements, unless there is some sort of specificity to the statement that makes it demonstrably false.
You can go around and say “Best coffee in the United States!” and it would be protected by the “puffery” definition, but you couldn’t say “Voted best coffee in the United States by USAToday!” because that’s claiming something specific enough to be falsified, so you better be able to back it up.
Well, advertising laws vary a lot by country and even localities. However, the general premise is that as long as you have some source that provides such an opinion, or a source that proves a particular fact (like #1 in vacuum sales!) then you can make the claim.
Usually “best” and “#1” claims that are subjective and not based on a measurable statistic are awarded by some third-party. You generally want this to be a credible source, like an industry organization or review board, but could be a simple editorial in a paper or literally your grandma. Like if my grandma says my business is the best one, I can run an ad saying “Best business in North Carolina!*” and in the fine print I’d put “* as rated by MoronicFrog’s grandmother”.
No one cares. No one takes enforcement action against these people except in the most egregious circumstances. It’s just not worth the effort. Besides, it’s easy to find some survey or statistic that supports whatever contention you want to make, and if you can’t, you can commission a survey to pretty much get the results you want.
They don’t specify number 1 what.
So for example, one of my friends runs a business that he can say ‘serves 97% of (this town)’. Clearly he doesn’t serve 97% of the town, that would be stupid. But if you look at the places his customers come from and draw round them in s particular way the area enclosed is actually pretty much the entire town. He actually could say 99.99% and, by the way he’s drawn it, he can prove it too. But 97% sounds more realistic.
Another example is someone wrote a book that they sold under the heading ‘the best selling book ever’. Obviously some guy didn’t just write the best-selling book ever. That’s mad. But he can subjectively day that is the best book about selling that a guy he knows had ever read. So it might not be the best selling as in ‘it’s a best seller’ but it might be the best selling as in ‘it’s the best book about selling’.
You know, I’m the tallest Man for hundreds of miles. I don’t need to tell you that I’ve deliberately gone to a place with no other men – like, maybe I’m 100 miles out to sea or something.
And I can always say that my mum made the best ginger cake ever. How are you going to prove otherwise? I can’t say that Betty Crocker said my mum makes the best ginger cake but I can say that my mum’s ginger cake is better than Betty Crocker’s – maybe I mean it’s the tastiest, maybe I mean it’s the lightest, maybe I mean it’s best for knocking your teeth out – I never said best in what way.
So the point is that you can claim all sorts if things that might be either unprovable (best cake) or are technically correct but a little misleading (I serve 97% of the town). It’s all about how you phrase it.
If you say something that is objectively false, like ‘my mum’s cake is so good she’s sold over a billion of them!’ then that’s where the trouble comes.
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