The U.S. government’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the only legal guardian in charge of protecting U.S. consumers from deceptive advertising, still allows advertisers to get away with deceiving consumers letting advertisers use actors/actresses to ‘portray’ (recreate) what so-called ‘real life’ testimonials supposedly have said about an advertiser’s product or service. Everyone in advertising knows that real life testimonials of satisfied users of advertisers’ products and services, along with product demonstrations of how a product works, are still the most effective forms of advertising to convince consumers to try a particular product or service; and rightfully so, but in the case of using testimonials only IF the testimonials are real and not ‘fake’.
However, as long as advertisers are allowed to use well-paid actors to recreate/portray advertisers’ testimonials, then no consumer anywhere can know for sure that a testimonial’s words said in an advertisement were, in fact, actually said by a ‘real life’ testimonial. The FTC does nothing to police the words used in advertisements unless a lot of consumers get together and complain challenging the truth and accuracy of the advertisers’ testimonials’ words used in advertisements. For decades now, advertisers have rarely, if ever, been challenged on the truth and accuracy of the testimonials’ words used in advertisers’ ads.
Especially effective in TV ads, too often ‘fake’ testimonials, recreated by actors, have displayed on the TV screen in the ad, very briefly and in very small print, words that say something like “actor portrayal” or “based on true stories”. This token effort at alerting consumers that actor portrayals are not the actual, real life testimonials in the ad legally permits the advertiser to deceive consumers into thinking the actors in the ads are the actual testimonials and/or are speaking the actual words of real life testimonials for a product or service.
Verification by the ‘creatives’ making the ads that the words in the ads are, in fact, the actual words of real life testimonials’ is suspect, at best. Consequently, actor testimonial portrayals can be ‘scripted’ to say almost anything to promote advertiser products and services and thus may deceive consumers as if the ‘scripted’ words were actually said by real life testimonials when, in fact, they may not have been said by real life testimonials.
One obvious culprit these days are the actor portrayals used by the American Cancer Society which uses TV ads to ask for donations using ‘actor portrayals supposedly speaking the words of real life testimonials. Unfortunately, the good work the Society does provide is overshadowed by the deceptive actor portrayals trained and ‘scripted’ to convince you that the actor testimonials in the TV ads are the actual, ‘real life’ people that beat cancer with the help of the American Cancer Society; when obviously the paid actor testimonial portrayals in the ad are not the actual people that beat cancer and the actors are just ‘acting as if’ they had really beat cancer.
Contrast how the American Cancer Society creates and uses testimonials in TV ads to get donations from the public with the Shriners for kids TV ads which uses the actual, real life kids being helped by Shriners as testimonials in the Shriners ads. The difference is remarkable and once you know the Shriners uses the actual, real life testimonials, and the American Cancer Society does not and uses actors to portray testimonials, by contrast makes the Shriners TV ads believable and the American Cancer Society TV ads deceiving.
Paid actors are professionals, trained at reading scripted words and being convincing and emotional, with scripted body movements and facial expressions all created to tug on your heart strings while asking for monetary donations. The FTC should mandate that ALL actor portrayals of ‘real life’ testimonials should say somewhere in the audio of the ad and/or visibly display in very large letters for the duration of the actor’s testimonial portrayal in the ad that the actor is not the ‘real life’ testimonial. Or better yet, advertisers should only be allowed to use actual, ‘real life’ testimonials in ads and not actors IF the FTC was truly interested in protecting consumers from being deceived, especially these days when millennials want and expect advertiser transparency without obvious deceptive ad practices.
Also, beware of “before and after” testimonial pictures, for example, skin wrinkle removers and bags-under-the-eyes removers advertisements. If you look closely at the “before” pictures, too often the shadows are harder, harsher and/or the skin in the “before” pictures is harsher in appearance compared to the softer shadows and softer looking skin in the obviously more attractive, more flattering “after” pictures.
This is accomplished one of several ways. First, the easiest way for advertisers to deceive consumers with ‘doctored’ “before and after” testimonial pictures is the advertiser uses softer lighting, making for softer, less harsh shadows and a better looking overall skin appearance in the “after” pictures compared to the “before” pictures. “Before” pictures are never created using soft lighting but they always only use the harshest lighting which always makes the testimonial look less attractive in “before” pictures compared to the lighting used in the “after” pictures.
A second way is, if the ‘shadows’ under the nose and under the chin are approximately the same darkness, hardness and/or harshness in both the “before and after” pictures, to make the testimonial look younger with fewer facial flaws and less harsh looking and thus more pleasing to the eye, the advertiser can have the ad production engineer ‘doctor’ or ‘roll the aperture’ on the video in the “after” pictures making the “after” pictures of the testimonial look softer and less harsh. This, in turn, makes the skin and/or facial flaws of the testimonial in the “after” pictures appear less flawed, younger looking, less wrinkled and so on, suggesting the advertisers’ product does, in fact, achieve the goal of making your skin look younger with fewer facial flaws and/or overall more attractive and pleasing to the eye.
A third way to deceive consumers with “before and after” testimonial pictures is add just a little makeup to the “after” pictures which will take the edge off the ‘harsh look’ seen in the “before” pictures, especially effective for pictures of women since we are so used to seeing women wearing some makeup compared to women’s “before” testimonial pictures where women are never allowed to wear any makeup at all. Of course, women wearing no makeup at all creates the most harsh, worst possible look compared to the same women wearing just a barely noticeable trace of makeup. For the most part the actual testimonials used in “before and after” pictures have no clue what is going on when their pictures are being created by the advertising creatives and advertiser during the ad production ‘photo shoot’.
Here is a fourth way to deceive consumers. When creating an ad and choosing from the hundreds of pictures taken of “before and after” testimonials, the advertiser can choose a less flattering “before” testimonial picture when the unsuspecting testimonial just so happens to ever so slightly raise their eyebrows, or squint their eyes, and/or ever so slightly smile which actually creates more wrinkles on the forehead and around the eyes, which also actually accentuates the bags under the eyes. These more unflattering shots would all be pictures chosen by the advertiser as ‘doctored’ “before” pictures to make the “before” testimonial picture more flawed looking with more wrinkles and more noticeable bags under the eyes compared to the “after” pictures chosen by the advertiser to be used in the ads.
Cosmetics advertisers have always legally been allowed to get away with making somewhat deceptive claims in their ads because cosmetics are exactly that…cosmetics that cover up and cosmetic companies are careful and skillful using words that do not make claims of literally transforming your appearance. For example, a cosmetics advertiser can legally say their product improves the ‘appearance’ of wrinkles but they never can legally say ‘removes or gets rid of wrinkles’.
Similarly, women’s hair shampoo and hair treatment products are legally allowed to use virtually genetically perfect women hair models with thick, shiny, flowing, glorious hair ‘portrayed as if’ they have actually been using the advertisers’ hair products, but the FTC expects consumers to know this does not mean your hair will look as good as the genetically perfect models’ hair after using hair products as advertised.
However, products claiming to ‘literally’ make transformative changes in your appearance, for example, “make the bags under your eyes virtually disappear”, are not exempt from FTC rules and regulations guarding consumers from deceptive claims. However, the FTC never investigates any advertisers’ ad claims until the FTC gets a lot of consumer complaints challenging an advertiser’s ad claims of truth, actual benefits and effectiveness.
Furthermore, when it comes to weight loss advertisers who use celebrities to say they lost weight using an advertiser’s products or services, well…for the past 40 years there has probably been only one truly successful testimonial, out of around 100 well-known celebrities used over the years as weight loss testimonials, that has lost weight and actually kept the weight off. That is a 1% long term success rate.
Maybe this kind of statistic should be mandated by law to be noted in ads when an advertiser uses celebrities as spokespersons who, by the way, are being well-paid to say what they say in the ads and who are supposedly using an advertiser’s products or services. Celebrities advertising for weight loss products and services are notorious for not succeeding losing weight and keeping it off over the long term, much to the chagrin of the advertisers paying celebrities handsomely for their weight loss testimonials.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: ANONYMOUS AD MAN WITH 42 YEARS EXPERIENCE IN ADVERTISING FROM 1978 TO 2020