Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 25, 1995 TAG: 9510250040
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Garfield, a columnist for Advertising Age, a trade publication, spoke Tuesday to a meeting of the Advertising Federation of the Roanoke Valley.
The long and short of the issue, Garfield said in an interview, is that people expect a certain level of puffery in traditional advertising.
When consumers see an ad or a commercial, he said, they view it "through a filter of protective skepticism."
But when an advertisement is made to look like documentary footage, he added, viewers "suspend disbelief." And that means the advertiser is misleading the consumer.
As an example, he cited an advertising campaign by AB Volvo, the Swedish car manufacturer, that appeared on national television in the U.S.
The commercial, he said, was made to look like footage of a truck rally. Trucks rolled over a Volvo vehicle that was not crushed, leaving the message with the viewer that the car was unusually strong and sturdy.
The rally was staged, Garfield said. And so were the impacts because the Volvo used for the commercial had been reinforced by steel I-beams.
People believed the commercial, the columnist said, so the "fraud was far worse" than if Volvo had engaged in puffery.
In that particular example, he said, the fraud was exposed because the Texas attorney general sued Volvo and its advertising agency.
The agency that prepared the commercial lost the Volvo account, he said, and the result was "a black eye" for the car manufacturer and for all advertising agencies.
That commercial no longer appears, but Garfield said other "reality" commercials are still produced.
by CNB