Institute deplores some advertising

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33064, 3 November 1972, Page 1

Institute deplores some advertising

The New Zealand consumer was not adequately protected against misleading advertising, the director of the Consumer Institute (Mr R. J. Smithies) said in Christchurch yesterday.

He said a firm marketing a motor accessory which served no useful purpose had grossed $84,000 in three months.

It had taken the Consumer Institute five weeks to get a product to test, six weeks to test it, and another six weeks to publish the results of the tests and show that the advertising was misleading. By this time, said Mr Smithies, the firm was scaling down its advertising anyway. But it was advertising two other products in terms which the institute believed were misleading. Mr Smithies said the Consumer Information Act of 1969 prohibited advertising claims which an advertiser knew or ought to know were false or misleading. “This sounds fine as far as it goes, but there is a consultation provision in the act which means that if an advertiser says to the Department of Trade and Industry that he has made a mistake and will not repeat the error, the chances are he will not be prosecuted,” said Mr Smithies. “He may have been advertising for some considerable time and may have reaped the benefit of the advertisements by the time action is taken.” PROVING CLAIMS The onus of proof was not on the advertiser, and it was much more difficult to disprove claims than to prove them if they were justified, Mr Smithies said.

“It can take a year to disprove misleading claims. In some cases it can be impossible — for example, where a chemical cannot be analysed. “It is usually very expensive. There can be so many products marketed with suspect claims that an organisation like ours cannot get round all of them — it may be years before some of them are examined. “Under the Medical Advertising Act, there used to be provision for the advertisers of medical and semi-medical

devices to be called upon to prove their claims before a Medical Advertisements Board. This provision was dropped when parts of the act were incorporated in the Food and Drug Act of 1969,” said Mr Smithies. ‘BACKWARD STEP’

“We think this was a backward step. The provision should have been retained, and the advertising for nonmedical products should have come under the scrutiny of a similar board.” Mr Smithies said that out of 24 clauses in the Consumer Information Act, 18 had been amended in the committee stages. This had left the consumer with insufficient protection.

The United States Federal Trade Commission had the power to require advertisers to prove their claims, and was making increasing use of this, said Mr Smithies. In addition, the commission had been requiring some advertisers to publish advertising which corrected earlier arw- misleading claims. It had the authority to make advertisers publish corrective advertising for periods of up to 12 months. Mr Smithies said the Consumer Institute did not feel it was necessary to go to these lengths in New Zealand, but thought it only reasonable that advertisers should be ready to demonstrate their good faith by substantiating their claims. ADVERTISING CODES

“We don’t envisage that vast numbers of advertisers would be called upon to prove their claims,” he said. “We don’t think that an independent authority to hear these claims would have to be a large body or cope with a great volume of work. “The majority of advertisers are pretty reasonable. Only a minority give dissatisfaction, and only a fringe element would have to come before the authority. We would expect that procedures would be established quickly to prevent future misleading advertising.”

Mr Smithies said there were three advertising codes in New Zealand but they had not prevented misleading advertising, and part of the reason for this was undoubtedly the fact that there was no

onus of proof on the adver tiser.

There were three motor specialty advertisements and a number of advertisements for slimming devices which should not have been accepted by the New Zealand publications concerned, he said. The slimming advertisements referred to would have been rejected under the British code for such products. SLIMMING DEVICES “There is a whole field of advertising for slimming devices which we consider highly misleading,” Mr Smithies said. “The sums grossed on the sales of worthless slimming products would greatly exceed the $84,000 taken by the motor specialty firm mentioned earlier.

“There are also some baldness preparations which we have shown to be worthless for the advertised purpose, but which are still being advertised at up to $2OO a course.”