NY Times article on lawsuits over factually inaccurate ads by rival companies

[alp227]

Best Soup Ever? Suits Over Ads Demand Proof
by Stephanie Clifford
November 21, 2009

A diamond is forever? Prove it.

Companies that were once content to fight in grocery-store aisles and on television commercials are now choosing a different route — filing lawsuits and other formal grievances challenging their competitors’ claims. Longtime foes like Pantene and Dove, Science Diet and Iams, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, and Campbell Soup and Progresso have all wrestled over ads recently.

The goal is usually not money but market share. Companies file complaints to get competitors’ ads withdrawn or amended.

The cases themselves might seem a little absurd — an argument over hyped-up advertising copy that not many consumers even take at face value. Pantene has attacked Dove’s claim that its conditioner “repairs” hair better, and Iams has been challenged on one of its lines, “No other dog food stacks up like Iams.”

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The number of complaints over ads from competitors filed with the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the industry’s main self-regulatory program for national ads, is on track to set a record this year. There have been 82 formal complaints so far in 2009, after last year’s record of 84 challenges, a sharp increase from 62 in 2007 and 52 in 2006.

Other companies file false-advertising lawsuits under the Lanham Act, passed in 1946 to strengthen trademark law. While there are no reliable tracking numbers on cases filed under that law, lawyers say they are seeing an increase.

This May, for instance, a judge issued a temporary order telling DirecTV to modify ads claiming that the bankruptcy of a rival, Charter Communications, would affect its service, after Charter sued. (The companies later settled.) United Parcel Service stopped running ads saying it was the “most reliable” shipping company after FedEx sued in May, arguing that the claim was based on outdated information.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/business/media/22lawsuits.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[elleng]

1. I'M the BEST!

NO, I'M the BEST!!!

How Dumb! If I were a Judge, I'd THROW THE BUMS OUT!!!