ABSTRACT
When you watch an ad that claims a brand’s basketball shoes will let you fly, do you then have the expectation that the shoes will literally allow you to fly if you wear them? If a pizza company claims that its pizza is the best in the world, is the company being deceptive? These are examples of “puffing” or “puffery,” a term that refers to exaggerated claims in advertisements. Courts and critics have tried for decades to draw distinctions between claims that are deceptive and those that are puffery. Most reasonable people, it’s argued, aren’t deceived by such puffery and advertisers’ intentions are not to create a false belief in people’s minds. Claims based on opinions (the best pizza in the world!) are seen as different from those making “objective” claims (our smartphone has a 16-megapixel camera!). See if you agree with the Better Living decision that puffing is defined as exaggerations or claims about a product’s quality that can’t be precisely determined to be true or false-but are not in themselves deceptive. At some point, exaggeration may, however, become deception, and this is the area in which ethicists, legal experts, consumers, and consumer protection agencies often disagree.
