Who is C. F. Frost, whose name appears on sample American Express cards?

[aldiboronti]

Cecil’s Column: Who is C. F. Frost, whose name appears on sample American Express cards?

Ogilvy and Amex thought it would be convenient to use Frost’s name on the sample ads rather than some phony moniker, which would probably turn out to be the real name of some joker in Pocatello who would sue for privacy infringement.

Apparently there’s more to it than convenience. Legally, whichever name was shown on the card had to have actually signed a contract with Amex. An employee of American Express contacted the company archivist when the question of CF Frost arose on the Crecit Card Forum.

The relevant section of the archivist’s reply:

It is important to note that for legal reasons American Express needs to use the name of an actual person, who has signed a contract with the company, granting American Express permission to use his or her name on a “dummy” card.

[DSYoungEsq]

I don’t believe that for a minute. The contrapositive of that statement is that if the name used was not the name of a person with a contract, they would be violating the law. But the counter-example would be to posit using a name that did not belong to anyone at all on the face of the planet Earth. How would that be illegal?

No, the real reason is exactly as stated in Unca Cece’s column: they did not want to use the name of some unknown person. The fact that all the persons who had contracted with Amex had given the company their permission to have their name used in promotional material would not be the reason that they had to select that particular person. At best, using the name of some person with an account would simply act as a shield against a lawsuit from such a person for having failed to obtain that person’s permission to use the name in advertising.

[aldiboronti]

I take your point, and in fact reading the archivist’s reply again the two statements can be easily reconciled. Rather then some law mandating this, which I at first understood it to be, the ‘for legal reasons’ might simply mean that if some CF Frost came forward and said, “That’s my name”, Amex could simply produce the contract with their CF Frost. (Impossible to do, of course, if the name was fictitious.)

Thanks for the correction, I’m sure now that’s what is meant and that Cecil and the archivist are singing from the same hymn sheet.

[John_W.Kennedy]

@aldiboronti

Apparently there’s more to it than convenience.

The word “convenient” means more than “handy”.

[John_W.Kennedy]

@DSYoungEsq

I don’t believe that for a minute. The contrapositive of that statement is that if the name used was not the name of a person with a contract, they would be violating the law.

The phrase “for legal reasons” means more than “at peril of criminal prosecution”.

[DSYoungEsq]

And the phrase “violating the law” does not equate to “at peril of criminal prosecution” either, as you should know.

When you intend to snark, at least snark correctly.