How do companies get away with saying “Real people, not actors” when it’s quite obvious that they are actors?
In: Other
Because technically they are telling the truth. They are real people, and as long as that is not their profession, they’re not actors either.
It’s pretty easy to get actual people in your ads like this if you want to make it real. You compensate them and many people are happy and enthusiastic to be in a commercial and do this sorta thing. “Hey, do you want to be in a TV commercials?! Wow me? Yes thats awesome”.
Obviously you choose the ones that have the best stories, are best on camera, and so on.
You’re thinking about this too hard. The real customer type ad is a very common and old ad.
Even if it looks like they are actors that doesn’t necessarily mean they are actors. It’s not that hard to make yourself look good when you are the one with the cameras and you get to decide what moments are included or what footage to drop on the floor. Doesn’t matter if 90% of their comments and reactions are negative if you choose only to keep 10% of the footage.
A common tactic is to have actors read actual customer testimonials. Since most people react more positively to attractive people, they’re getting photogenic people who perform well on camera to read something an actual customer wrote. It’s a bit of a splitting hairs situation, but it does make the claim (at least somewhat) truthful.
Apart from that, though, there’s nobody really taking companies to task about it, and no real mechanism to do so. Frankly, it’s generally accepted that most advertising is frequently lies or exaggerations, so it basically boils down to “you know we know you’re lying.”
It also doesn’t fall under the heading of false advertising (unless they take the statements way too far), so there’s no legal avenue to pursue. The closest complaint that could probably stick would be misrepresentation, and given what companies spend on that advertising – and what they make on it – the penalty would be a pittance in comparison even if someone did care enough to try to make a stink about it.
They probably are real people. They were just compensated for their surprised expressions. The company edits out the negative comments.
What do you mean it’s “quite obvious that they are actors”? Do they flash their SAG member cards during the commercial?
There are plenty of charismatic people who aren’t actors and there are plenty of casting agencies who can find them if that’s what the client wants.
There is no way to know if they are actors or not. It is likely they had a large number of people, used a significant amount of makeup and camera tricks, and cut the footage up a lot. Pay attention to commercials with “real people” and notice how they are usually talking for less than 2-3 seconds per cut. The editing just makes it seem like they are giving more. Even in a 30 second ad you will rarely see more than 10 seconds of “real people”.
Latest Answers