ABSTRACT
Advertising practitioners sometimes face an inconvenient problem: a persuasive advertisement is considered deceptive by consumers and regulators. Competitors and consumer advocates may also challenge the ad for creating false impressions or beliefs, and the disputes may end up in court. For example, AT&T filed a lawsuit against Verizon Wireless in November 2009, seeking to stop its rival from using “misleading” wireless coverage maps in national advertising campaigns (Cheng 2009). In May 2010, Washingtonbased advocacy group Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) filed a formal complaint against General Motors (GM), charging GM with deceptive advertising. A GM national TV ad said it had paid back its bailout loan from the government. CEI argued that the repayment actually came from another government bailout account provided by the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) (Thomaselli 2010b).
