I saw a billboard advertising a cosmetic dentist and commented out loud how nice the teeth on the person on the billboard looked when someone sitting next to me said that the models on billboards are typically picked from a portfolio provided by an ad agency and very likely never had work done by that particular dentist.
In fact, this person said, it is likely a photo-shopped photograph meaning that nobody actually looks like the person pictured in the photo.
I thought for a minute and realized that most ads are filled with models that have never used the products they are advertising, however, if a dentist uses a stock photo to represent their own work isn’t that false advertising, or at least misleading advertising?
A reasonable person might pick a particular dentist assuming that the person pictured in an ad is a patient when in fact they aren’t. Or is this simply another example of ‘caveat emptor’?
I’d say it is false advertising. It’s the same with body building advertising, they show a guy with incredible abs using their pathetically useless rubber band device, with the inference he got that way using their gadget.
I’ve seen ads with very small print that say ‘this is a model and not an actual customer’, but I didn’t see that on on this particular billboard… perhaps it’s implied.
Caveat emptor. The dentist is selling his services, not models. The same with the body building ad, they aren’t misrepresenting their rubber band device in the pictures. Obviously you know that the guy with the six pack doesn’t come with it. Food advertisers can’t show their product with extra ingredients or disproportionately sized ingredients, but they can put them all on a really small plate to look like you get more.
Advertising has a lot of very arcane rules. The person in the ad can imply that they use the product but they can’t say that unless they use it. Of course, if they used it, but only once, then they’re not lying.
There are certain claims that can be made and others that can’t. Mostly the idea of advertising is that you will be happy if you buy the product and there will be a hole in your life if you don’t.
Diet products can say that so-and-so lost 30 pounds in thirty days and qualify that with “results not typical” in tiny print.
But they can tell you that the mascara will make your lashes three times longer, even though it actually won’t (and the model is wearing false lashes). They don’t have to put “results not typical” on that one.
Maybe those fabulous-looking people you see with the pearly white teeth are pictures of the dentists whose services are being offered. Or models thereof.
The back covers of telephone books (and a great many inside pages in the classified section) seem to be particularly likely to offer the services of lawyers. These often feature pictures of very severe-looking lawyers, the better to intimidate and terrify witnesses upon cross-examination.
These, too, are just photos of models. Look in the small print, and you may find it mentioned there. Those people pictures in the ads aren’t really the actual lawyers you will get. (For all we know, the real lawyers you get may have bad teeth too.)
We know the guy doesn’t come with it, the point is although they never actually say so, I believe it’s misleading to infer the guy got his abs from using their device.
I know on Australian TV the pictures of Big Macs bear no resemblance to the product they dish up.
If they explicitly said “All our patients end up with teeth that look like this.” and they can’t deliver on that promise, then that would cross the line into false advertising. But since they don’t actually say it, they imply it, they’re on the legal side of the line. Dishonest, maybe. Illegal, no.
Companies, firms, and people who do advertising comprise the vast bulk of the nation’s economy. I’m pretty sure that the laws are not going to make anything but the most egregious and dangerous practices illegal. This is not one of those.
I’ve seen multiple dentists advertising using the same stock photo. It may not be false advertising in a legal sense, but I think it’s a bad practice, and pretty bad business if people notice it. It makes me wonder, does this dentist not have any work they’re proud enough of to actually show me? I realize it’s more likely just laziness, but I don’t think it sends the right message.
What a sad, defeated attitude. Really. “Caveat emptor”? Whenever I see someone dismiss marketing BS with that trite expression it makes me grit my teeth.
Yeah, sure, buying a car from someone on Craigslist… the buyer needs to be wary and take nothing for granted; “beware” if you like.
But in a world with nonstop marketing for every product imaginable, smacking us around and defining our world for us and invading ever-more-personal and -private niches… you really put the blame on the buyer? That consumers are just stupid to take advertising at some level of face-value and that things pictured in ads might bear some relationship to the product or service being marketed? To that unlevel playing field (in the same sense that Everest isn’t a plain), you bring “Well, buyer beware, y’know!”?
Oh, wait. :smack: That’s right, ads only affect stupid gullible people, and you aren’t one of those, so tough titties to those who aren’t so smart. Got it.
I’m not at all satisfied with the state of things, but it is the state of things. However the cases cited here are obvious. The majority of advertising uses sex appeal to sell products, and that’s because it works. And if you don’t know the difference between the product being sold and the people standing next to it then you would be kind of stupid. It is so well known that advertising exagerrates that it’s become a joke. You can find a commercial showing a car driving underwater that puts up the disclaimer “Do not drive underwater” for humorous effect. Would you have someone suing that car company if someone drives their car into a lake if that warning wasn’t there?
I’m not in any way suggesting that ads should be literal (or considered so, under reasonable assumptions) but if a dentist is going to advertise his work, I would indeed call it false advertising to use a stock shot of a model’s snow-white choppers.
I also champion a healthy skepticism about ads and marketing claims, but the point here is that the context is vague enough to leave the impression that Dr. Mick Donalds DDM can turn your stained teeth to pearlies… and since it’s very unlikely that he can, even in the best of cases, the ad is misleading in a way that even a reasonably intelligent viewer could misinterpret.
It’s a sliding scale, certainly, but I still call it BS to sweep all marketing misrepresentation aside under some absolutist interpretation of “caveat emptor.”
A. What do you expect him to use?
B. A dentist provides services, not products. The model is not his work.
C. It’s not false advertising in any legal sense.
D. You don’t know that the model wasn’t his patient. I’ve seen dentists that advertised with their own patients before.
A qualified dentist can make anyone’s teeth look just like the model’s. They won’t resemble the model in any other way, and depending how your teeth started it could be a long, expensive, and painful process.
Why not? Do you really expect that there will be some kind stricter enforcement of realistic impressions in advertising?
Thanks everyone. This all makes sense, and while not considered false advertising, it certainly is misleading, and if a dentist needs to use misleading advertising to get someone to use their services that doesn’t say much for the dentist.
I don’t think misleading advertising is uncommon, but I was hoping that they would hold doctors and lawyers (i.e. professionals) to a higher standard than someone who sells body building equipment or spray-on hair restorers for men. Apparently I was wrong about that…
Lawyers do have professional standards for advertising set by the state bar, although they vary wildly from state to state. Montana actually has one of the stricter ones, so you won’t really see much beyond the name of the firm, the area of law they practice and a picture of the lawyers.
Or models thereof.