Question

Ethical Issue: What is puffery, and how can it be justified in marketing messages? Consider the following: Dr. Phil calls himself "America's most trusted relationship counselor." Rush Limbaugh claims to be "America's anchorman." Sony's Cyber-Shot camera advertisement says "Make time stand still."

Answer 1

There is often only a thin line of difference between False or Deceptive advertisements and Puffery. Therefore, when the line of difference is not well understood, it may invite a lot of trouble, especially in terms of lawsuits, to the Advertisers. This is more often true in case of small businesses. Hence, the only rational way of evading the false advertising lawsuits against them, for the small businesses, would be being genuine in their advertising approaches as well as ethical in their way of conducting the business and more transparent when it comes to promoting its products to the consumers. It is rather difficult for a small-scale business to withstand the competition laid by the bigger players in the market and especially when it attempts to do so by way of misleading advertisements, the consequences are even worse. Moreover, it is easier for the bigger players in the market to point out the loopholes in the advertising of these small businesses' products however, the other way round would become a costlier affair to prove in the court of law for these small businesses that the bigger players' advertisements approaches are inappropriate. Hence if the small businesses are ethical in their advertisements, there could be more assurance of survival and growth in the market instead of resorting to unethical means of placing deceptive advertisements before the consumers and thereby not just being prone to the defamation charges in the market but also witness a steady decline in the growth of such small business.

It is to be noted that Puffery makes the advertisements look more interesting. It has the charm of luring the consumers to at least give a view to such advertisements, even if not the consumer is willing to become the customer of the product so advertised. However, the chances of the consumers converting into being the customers for that puffery advertised products would relatively higher if they give a glance to those advertisements. Therefore puffery is just a marketing trick used to pull more eye-balls towards the product so promoted by the Company. In order to justify the same, It could add the sense of humor it or a sense of emotions that could help relate the consumers with those products in more favorable way although the consumers shall be in know of the fact that those advertisements are mere exaggeration but still attempting to touch their hearts.

However, as discussed before, there is often a fine line of difference between puffery and deceptive advertising for the reason being that at times, the Companies' promoting their products before the Public play a game of pretending to be innocent and oblivion to the fact that they are crossing the lines of puffery and thereby making the same deceptive for the consumers. Also, many a times, there is a grey area left between Puffery and Deception for these Companies to claim for innocence. These Companies may seek the advantages of such situations wherein it is confusing for the Public to identify if the advertising is a mere exaggeration or has indeed some gravity to it. These confused states of affair are the areas of scope for the Companies to exploit and also get free from the clutches of the lawsuits. Therefore there is only a thin line of difference between the two.

It is fair for none, be it for big Companies like Unilever or for the small Companies who are not much known to the markets, to target any other firms for misleading advertisements if they are in the knowledge that the intention was not to deceive the Public. The set of values that universally makes a Company differentiate between what is right or wrong, form the code of ethics. This code needs to be practiced by all Companies, irrespective of their sizes. When purposely filing false lawsuits to target the small players to move out of the competition, the ethical values of such Companies are certainly breached and hence it cannot be termed as a 'Fair play'.