I understand that it would be spectacularly dumb for Obama to start any kind of legal action against McCain’s campaign for any of the made up shit in his various propaganda, but even so, one would think that a system would exist to stop people from lying in TV ads. I’m sure such a system already exists, but why then is it never used? If I see a lie in a TV ad I can email the ASA and they’ll investigate and take action. I can only assume that an equivalent body exists in the US, and yet I’ve never heard a single report that started ‘the McCain campaign’s latest ad has been pulled after an adjunction following a complaint from a citizen’.
Seems strange to me, considering what is at stake.
I’m not aware of any sort-of regulating body for commercials here in the US. I might do some research.
The USA has the FTC but I doubt they handle this type of ads.
Speaking of lying in adverts, I saw an ad for ‘Flora Buttery’ yesterday. They said they did blind taste-tests against a leading butter brand’s spreadable product, and they showed that people preferred the Flora.
The small print said that out of 200 people tested, 45% preferred Lurpak Spreadable, 48% preferred Flora Buttery and 7% had no preference. When less than half of respondents prefer your product, and your margin of ‘victory’ is less than half of the number of people who couldn’t choose, are you really allowed to make that sort of claim? Who wants to work out the p-value?
I don’t know what the usual test is in that situation, but the margin of error on that is:
Lurpak: 38%-52%
Flora: 41%-55%
That’s not remotely significant.
I think it’s OK to lie in political ads over there because nobody is going to make an informed rational choice anyway. They go for the one that looks and sounds the most normal.
and before anyone gets high and mighty about my joke, just think, they elected Bush… twice.