Assignment 3: Deceptive Advertising

Deceptive advertising, also known as false advertising, refers to a manufacturer's use of confusing, misleading, or blatantly untrue statements when promoting a product. Advertising law will protect consumers from deceptive advertising through the enforcement of specific legislation. Many companies in America to this and get away with it all the time, but the ones that get caught are the one that blatantly lie to our faces. The only way to spot this is to be critical of what people are trying to sell you and investigate all claims before making your decision in purchasing a product or partaking in some kind of event.

Erectile dysfunction affects 1 out of 4 men in the U.S. today and although it’s a touchy subject many companies have tried to come out with a product to battle against this certain problem. Which brings me to the product known as ExtenZe. The makers say that these pills are natural male enhancement pills that are guaranteed to really increase your penis girth and penis size in just a few short weeks of taking these medically formulated enhancement pills! They openly claim that their product will, Enlarge the penile erection and penis size, Way more larger and frequent erections, More intense orgasms, The penile erection is quicker to obtain and more reliably as well as much more. If all these claims are true then why did the company just settle in court to pay 6 million dollars due to false advertising? Because of course the pills don’t work. ExtenZe claimed that its product had been clinically tested, no credible scientific evidence was ever presented for this male-enhancement product.  Their claims outraged many people in need of a solution. They even had ads that featured testimonial about their product from “real people” that were also shown to be false. In the commercial the “real people” would state that over a billion tablets were sold which was also seen to be false. While advertising the company literally made up names of ingredients that were supposed to be included in the product names such as ambesium labidrol" and "aunctus philtrum. Crazy I know! They eventually even offered full refunds to customers but made it extremely difficult for customers to get them. But as they went to court they were ordered to give back partial refund to customers as well as make a donation to the Prostate Cancer Foundation.  Not only were they lying but they were potentially putting people’s lives in danger with all of their lying of the ingredient the product contained. Now Extenze no longer claims to do much of anything. On its web site, it makes some vague statements about “male enhancement” and “enhanced sexual pleasure”. This is just one example of how blatantly deceiving a company can be while trying to sell you a product, but this goes for all companies. Not all are caught either most just slip right past the radar so it’s up to us to make a conscious decision about the product we buy.