2009-03-23
Results Not Typical
The Federal Trade Commission has proposed revisions to its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (warning: very dry reading). The big news here is that they want to mandate not just a “results not typical” disclaimer when a company uses testimonials in advertising, but an explicit statement of what the typical results are.
So rather than seeing the woman who lost 150 pounds and reading at the bottom of the screen “results not typical,” you’d see the woman who lost 150 pounds and read at the bottom of the screen “average dieter lost 4 pounds in 6 months” or whatever.
The change is based on research shows that people perceive testimonials as typical, even if there’s a disclaimer to the contrary.
To me, this is like the difference between “perfect use efficacy” statistics and “typical use efficacy” statistics with contraception. Condoms: perfect use, 98% effective; typical use, 85% effective. I think it’s fair and important to tell people what the best results could be, what the likelihood is, AND what variables mediate the difference between the two. Lubricating the condom, smoothing out air bubbles, storing it safely… there are lots of things people can do to decrease the likelihood of condom failure.
Ditto with diets. But companies have a vested interest in people failing at weight loss – or rather, in people losing and then regaining. That initial success anchors a person to a product/strategy/whatever so that they forget the later reversion. So giving people a fair accounting of their likely success might just help them set more realistic expectations and goal for themselves, which is one of the strategies for success.
As far as I can tell, the guidelines only really become important if a company is sued for misrepresenting their product. Still. Seems like a good idea to me.