The iPhone and false dramatizations

David Pogue's blog has a post today about the apparent "fakery" in iPhone ads, which composite images of the iPhone with other images of the screen, achieving a result that approximates user experience but without disclosing that the images are simulations. There were 100 comments to Pogue's post when I looked, essentially all dismissive. We should know, they claimed, that photos are routinely retouched to make products look better.

That's not what the FTC thinks. Colgate-Palmolive made shaving cream that actually could “shave” sandpaper. On TV, however, real sandpaper looked like nothing but colored paper. The advertiser, therefore, rigged a demonstration using simulated “sandpaper” made of plexiglass covered with sand. The Supreme Court upheld the FTC’s order barring the ad. The Court agreed with the FTC’s conclusion that “even if an advertiser has himself conducted a test, experiment or demonstration which he honestly believes will prove a certain product claim, he may not convey to television viewers the false impression that they are seeing the test, experiment or demonstration for themselves, when they are not because of the undisclosed use of mock-ups.” Federal Trade Comm’n v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 380 U.S. 374, 385-86 (1965).

Using undisclosed props or mock-ups does not necessarily create a false demonstration or dramatization; it is only when consumers are told to rely on their own perceptions to verify the advertiser’s claim that a dramatization or demonstration can be false. The Supreme Court gave the example of a scoop of mashed potatoes used to stand in for ice cream under hot studio lights. If the potatoes are not used to prove a product claim, there is no problem. But if “the focus of the commercial becomes the undisclosed potato prop and the viewer is invited, explicitly or by implication, to see for himself the truth of the claims about the ice cream’s rich texture and full color, and perhaps compare it to a ‘rival product,’” it would become false. Id. at 393. Given Apple's emphasis on the clarity of the iPhone's screen, I think the rule requiring a disclaimer applies here.

The comments to Pogue's post, however, raise the question whether, in this cynical age, we expect all ad images to be fakery anyway. If so, there is no deception. But the disclaimer rule is a modest requirement, and could protect some consumers (as well as preventing further deterioration of our willingness to believe ad claims, which is important when the claims are in fact truthful but we mistakenly discount them as standard fakery).