Moment of Truth

In its heaviest crackdown on phony TV advertising, the Federal Trade Commission last week gave new teeth to an old saw: things are rarely what they seem. The FTC filed complaints against four major national advertisers (Standard Brands, Colgate-Palmolive, Alcoa and Lever Bros.), three advertising agencies (Manhattan's Ted Bates & Co. and Foote, Cone & Belding, and Pittsburgh's Ketchum, MacLeod & Grove), and Foote, Cone's Vice President William H. Bambric. The charge: trickery designed to fool the TV viewer.

Charged the FTC:

P: The "flavor gems" used by Standard Brands to show that its Blue Bonnet margarine is as good as "high-price spread" (oleo lingo for butter) are actually drops of a nonvolatile liquid substituted just for the demonstration.

P: "What purports to be a piece of dry sandpaper" used by Colgate-Palmolive to show that even sandpaper can be shaved with its Rapid Shave is actually a "mockup made of glass or Plexiglas to which sand has been applied."

P: When Alcoa pits a piece of its "New, Super-Strength Alcoa Wrap" against "ordinary wrap," it stacks the deck by seeing to it that the "ordinary wrap" is "deliberately torn and severely wrinkled," puts a dried-out ham in the ordinary wrap and a fresh ham in its own.

P: Pepsodent's demonstration seeking to prove that it can remove yellow smoke stains caused by a cigarette smoking machine "does not actually prove that Pepsodent toothpaste is effective in removing tobacco smoke stains from the teeth of all smokers, and especially the accumulated stains of habitual smokers."

The ad world and the companies involved reacted as if the FTC had attacked mother and apple pie. Fairfax Cone, who had a hand in creating the Pepsodent commercial and who sternly told admen three weeks ago to clean up "dishonest advertising," had a novel retort: "To me it wasn't wrong, and I think I have as high ideals as anybody around. I believe in the truth." Colgate-Palmolive announced that its shaving commercial was only "a technique used to overcome photographic difficulties," and that "sandpaper can be shaved." Standard declared that "the presence of the gems in Blue Bonnet is an established fact." Alcoa denied all wrongdoing. Irving Miller, supervisor of the Alcoa account for Ketchurn, MacLeod, explained further that the torn, crumpled, "ordinary foil" may even have been Alcoa's regular foil.

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