Advertisers are very fond of promoting the best case scenario in advertisements, such as sale ads that say “Save up to 50% on sofas” or “Sofas as low as $199”.
The careful reader will or should recognize this trick that not all sofas are discounted 50% or priced at $199. But what about the average person who is exposed to advertising? Do they only recall the 50% savings claim rather than the “up to” part of the claim?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wanted to know, so they commissioned a study to out. Over 350 people were shown one of the three ads below, and asked about what they recalled.
The first ad makes an “up to 47%” savings claim. The second makes a straight 47% claim. And the third makes an “up to 47%” savings but with a fine print disclosure that the average savings are 25%.
*MOUSE PRINT:
When asked what the ad said about how much you would save on heating and cooling bills with these windows,
Ad 1 (with “up to” claim): 46% said they would save “47%” and only 26% said “up to” 47%
Ad 2: 58% said they would save “47%”
Ad 3 (with “up to” claim and disclaimer): 37% said they would save 47% and 30% said “up to” 47%
The study suggests that many consumers are blind to fine print disclosures, and that the use of “up to” claims misleads sizeable numbers of consumers. This certainly appears to support the notion that sellers should not be allowed to use either “up to” claims nor to put clarifications in fine print footnotes.
Massachusetts law, for example, does not allow “up to” claims in advertising. The ad must state both the smallest discount and largest discount in equal size type (such as “save 10 – 50%”), and at least 10-percent of the items being offered for sale must be available at the biggest discount offered.
Not a bad model to follow in the other 49 states.
The phrases that make me ignore sale signs are “up to…off” and “starting at…”
I think I dislike “starting at…” more because with a phrase like that a store can have “starting at $5” but have most of the items under the label can be priced way above $5. JC Penny does this a lot.
For “up to…off” I can at least hope that each item has SOME cost taken off of it. So not all is lost, unless they do the “mark up to mark down” routine.
I’m not sure I’d say an ad like the first “misleads” people. If you consider that half of the people out there are idiots, it does not matter what you print, they will believe what they want. I mean, supposedly about 80% of the people out there believe in a magical ghost man in the sky, but I digress.
I truly believe if you were to change an ad to “10 to 50% off” a good portion would still believe everything is 50% off. But sadly, a good proportion of those couldn’t even calculate 50% off if the starting price was, say, $100.
The bottom line is, who cares what any advertising says. When you are in the store on looking online, just look at the final price and if you think it is a deal then buy it, if not then pass on it.
I have absolutely no problem with an ad that says “up to 50% off” so long as there is at least one item that truly is 50% off.
For this to be a good report, I would have liked to have seen a poll in Massachusetts to see what people there would have responded to what their ads say. I can bet that a good portion of people still do not understand what “10 to 50%” off means or that only 10% of the items may be 50% off.
For Ad#2, only 58% of people could say that “save 47%” means “save 47%”…what did the other people think? If 42% of people don’t understand something that’s completely straightforward, why bother?
…or am I part of the confused half, is there more to this?
Working in Retail for many years, it’s amazing what people don’t understand. So many times I hear people say oh I didn’t look at that. And it doesn’t even have to be fine print. In some instances the print is the same size as the rest of the ad. Some people choose to see only what they want to see. The thing that is really upsetting is when customers see something incorrectly and then they become belligerent and demand an item that is not on sale for the sale price because they mis-read the ad.
I’m honestly not shocked that the ads are confusing/misleading- let’s face it, people; Misleading ads are a way of life these days. I can get why people would say “save 47%” doesn’t mean “save 47%”:
1) they’re confused
2) they’re just plain stupid (sorry, but if you think about it, it’s true)
3) they’ve been screwed over one too many times from sneaky ads
4) they’re wary of any ads
5) they’re simply well-informed (Charli)
6) they’re paranoid
(oh, and by the way, thanks for the reply Edgar; you’re the coolest lawyer I know)
More troublesome is the “up to…or more” formulation which, when you stop to really think about it, is utterly meaningless. “You could save up to 47% or more!” Like the others, it seems to promise large savings but it actually means nothing at all.