The number one thing you can do to avoid legal issues while advertising and marketing for a product is to make sure the advertisements are not false or misleading. Splenda missed the mark with this one as they claimed their product was "made from sugar". The Sugar Association asked for an investigation into alternative sweetener Splenda's "Made from Sugar" slogan. It complained that the tagline was misleading, and that the sweetener is nothing more than "highly processed chemical compound made in a factory". In 2007, a resulting lawsuit led by the makers of rival sweetener Equal, settled against Splenda. Equal was looking for $200 million from Splenda in the settlement for unfair profits. The lawsuit says the defendants are trying to convince consumers that Splenda is "unhealthy or unsafe," suggesting they'd be better off consuming refined sugar. But a McNeil spokeswoman says sugar is indeed used to make one of the ingredients in Spl...
For an ad campaign to be considered socially responsible, the advertising used in the campaign must meet an ethical standard. Corporate social responsibility marketing has been a focus of several major ad campaigns, but if the ads used in the campaign are seen as deceptive by the public, the company is unlikely to be considered socially responsible regardless of the theme of the advertisements. These days everyone knows that you can't take advertisements at face value. Photoshop, misleading wording, deliberate omission of certain facts -- all frequent techniques that advertisers use to toe the line while they're pushing their product down your throat. In 2012 Skechers paid a $40 million settlement for its deceptive advertising for Shape-ups, Resistance Runner, Toners, and Tone-ups. They claimed that tying your shoes was the only thing needed for weight loss. According to the FTC, Skechers exaggerated claims regarding the shoes' effectiveness, specifically...