I’ve noticed a new type of disclaimer at the end of TV commercials that announce a contest: “Many will enter, few will win”. Well, duh! Has it recently become a legal necessity to announce this?
It’s always been a legal responsibility to post the odds somewhere (usually in that tiny type at the very end). Maybe this is a way the lawyers have figured out to let you know that a) this is a game of chance and b) your chances aren’t very good.
A WAG as usual from me, but I recall someone once suing Publishers’ Clearinghouse on the basis they ‘should’ have won because they signed up for some unGodly amount of magazines that they felt somehow justified their winning.
Of course the guy lost and looked like an idiot, but not before making Publishers’ look like a bunch of evil crooks who’s contest is rigged and who-knows-what-other-accusations.
I remember at one point they had to start putting in a disclaimer that said your odds of winning were no different if you buy their magazines or not, but obviously the quasi-technical jargon they used to say this still confused a few people, and so I guess they tried to restate it in the most obvious words possible.
The reason is that some idiot is out there right now saying “Hmmm…odds of winning are 1 in 1,000,000…therefore, if I buy 1 million magazines, I HAVE to win!”
Several states are currently suing Publisher’s Clearing House because they feel that their contest is misleading.
In other words, there are people stupid enough to think that they will make money by ordering a bunch of mags…and the state feels that PCH should do more to protect the stupid.
I’ve heard this disclaimer on a Cocoa Pebbles commercial and some other kid-type product. Maybe the sponsers were getting too many calls from crying children (or their irate parents).
I remember the PCH thing. Their mailings stated ‘you may have already won.’ The definition of ‘may’ was decidedly inappropiate.
I like that car ad where they have it driving thru like a mosh pit. The disclaimer says,
‘don’t drive on people.’
One of the states suing Publishers Clearing House is North Carolina, where I reside. The reason they are doing this is because every year during the Super Bowl when the PCH is supposedly giving away a million dollars, they have sent “Prize Patrol Vans” (or exact replicas) into the major cities thus starting numerous rumors. When in fact these “Prize Patrols” are fake, sent out to do just what I mentioned. The state is calling this fraudulent. Me personally, I think it is great promo work.
“Solos Dios basta” . . . but a little pizza won’t hurt.
Speaking of disclaimers (and hijacking the thread), I remember seeing disclaimers in the closing credits of several shows with extraterrestrial themes saying something to the effect of “The US government has investigated claims of alien sightings and has determined that no threat to national security exists”.
Say WHAT? This sounds a heck of a lot like “He doth protest too much”. Note that they don’t even specificly deny that aliens or UFOs are real. Whose idea was this anyway?
I’ve been hearing this radio commercial recently (I don’t remember / don’t know whether or not it is a local commercial, so one of you guys may or may not have seen it)…it is a car commercial / car dealership commercial. (I don’t remember much about what the actual product is, to be honest, but anyway…), it has about 10 seconds of ads followed by 40 seconds of a guy talking really really fast telling you about how crappy the product really is and all the catches of buying it. No joke! My god…if you sell cars, do NOT advertise on the radio, it’s much easier to put all that crap on the bottom of the screen for ½ a second .
Disclaimers are just ridiculous in general. For example, there is an automobile commercial where a car drives on stage during a rock concert. The advertisement caught my ear because the music was by Crystal Method. The car starts to “crowd surf” by driving out on top of the people, much like many musicians will do in concert. The fine print actually says, and I qoute:
“Always drive on roads, not on people.”
How retarded is that? Just pure unaduolterated evidence that disclaimers on the whole are all legal CYA horseshit to protect large companies from our countrie’s pathetic legal system. Don’t get me wrong, I love my country, but out legal system is a joke. Hence all these insipid disclaimers.
Noonch.
“And on the eighth day, God Created beer
to prevent the Irish from taking over
the Earth.”
~SNOOGANS~