Truth in Advertising: A Justifiable Expectation?

In June 2010 Bell sued Rogers for Roger's advertising/promotional claim that it is the "Fastest Most Reliable Network."  Some see it as ridiculous and others see it as a case about truth in advertising.

On the one hand we all know that advertising is loaded with puffery and to take promo claims with a grain of salt.  On the other, advertisers themselves claim that advertising is a legitimate way of getting information about products to the customer.  After all, who else will let them know the features and options available to them in the competitive marketplace?  Purchasing decisions are to be made on the basis of what fulfills your needs the best.  This is the bais of capitalism's primary to legitimacy.  Good products will prevail - goodness being defined as that which best improves the quality of people's lives by their own judgment. 

The question is not whether you are savvy enough to realize that these claims are self interested self serving, and to temper the influence they may have over you.  This would suggest a world where falsehood rather than truth is the dominant expectation.

Rather, it is whether public utterances of any kind (advertising or otherwise) are worth enough to try to maintain.  It is the question of whether it is naive to assume a general principle:  When someone says something, it bears some fairly reliiable relationship with "reality."  "Reality" may be a complex term but our everyday affairs suggest it has something to do with the ability to make decisions on the basis of things that hold sway in the world.  Everything from the weather to Internet blogging, facebook and twitter have elements of both pure entertainment and "truth."  The closer we get to things that the speaker tells us are true and we rely upon for decision-making, the closer we get to having a "right" to regard them as something we can rely upon.

What Bell has done with their law suit is obviously self-interested, but is also something in the line of faith restoring.  Their actions seems to suggest that they feel advertising should resemble truth as well.  Far from expecting Rogers or other self-promoters to say whatever gets them customers and their revenue, they seem to be suggesting that advertising should be something that can be supported by evidence.  How would Rogers know that their network is faster?  Is it not reasonable to ask them for the evidence?  If the slogan is true, it would be a great benefit to Rogers.  If not, it would seem reasonable to ask them to retract it and replace the claim with something bearing some more supportable relationship to reality.

On May 4, 2010 in Fredricton, Justice Judy Clendening of he Court of Queen's Bench in Fredericton ordered Rogers to stop claiming to have the "fastest speed," "most reliable speed," or "fastest and most reliable speed" because they could not support their claim in the absence of fuller information about the Bell Network.

Truth (and support for it) is important plain and simple.  Truth has always been regarded as one of the highest moral imperatives. While it would be nice to find it self-evident, self-generating and self manifesting, we all know that everyone is subject to overstating their value in the world.   While we like to see it in others, we are ourselves vulnerable to distorting it for personal gain.

While it is a complex concept, there is a simple and widely accepted convention about it.  "Because I said so," (or "ipse dixit" in Latin) is generally very suspect.  We increasingly prefer evidence and independent support for the "truth" of something.  

If we should all know that advertising is puffery and beyond the simple principle of the need for independent evidence and support, there is no justification for consuming so much of our valuable time, energy, psychic resources.  If there is one thing that is universally scarce and justifiably regarded as precious in life it is time.  Why should we allow our personal and public space and air waves to be clogged with statements telling us what we should already know is false.  So, if advertising is so obvious puffery and we are fools to take it as truth, then by all means let's get on with banning it outright as it does not advance anything but cynicism and disrespect truth itself.