Friday, May 20, 2011

Who’s Writing Your Online Ads?

I recently saw a vehicle advertised on a dealer website that caught my attention. This pre-owned car was advertised as a “CarFax One Owner”. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the “one owner” was a rental car company.



Even though the “one owner” statement may have been technically true, the description of the vehicle blew my mind: “With just one previous owner, who treated this vehicle like a member of the family, you'll really hit the jackpot when you drive home with this terrific car”. (Now I know that Enterprise has been advertising lately that they are a “family company”, but I’m not sure that this is what they had in mind…).

I was intrigued by this statement, so I kept sniffing around. It turns out that the dealership is part of a large dealer group and I noticed that similar statements were advertised on prior rental vehicles in some of their other stores as well. For example:

“This 2010 Elantra is for Hyundai fans that are searching for that babied, one-owner creampuff.”

“From the looks of it, I'd say this car has been garage kept and babied regularly. If only my wife treated me as nice!!!”



So, are these statements just harmless puffery that is intended to make the vehicles stand out? Perhaps, but I can’t help but speculate that representing that a rental car has been treated like a “member of the family”, “babied”, and “garage-kept” might not go over too well with an attorney general, judge or a customer who understandably thinks that “one owner” means one private owner.

Depending on the dealership, online advertising may be handled by any number of people such as a used car manager, internet manager, or perhaps an outside vendor. I realize that whoever wrote these ads may not have knowingly tried to deceive anyone. Perhaps they weren’t aware that the cars were rentals and just relied on the fact that CarFax identified the vehicles as “One Owner”. However, if an ad is deemed to be deceptive or misleading, an advertiser will likely have liability regardless of whether there was intent to deceive. A dealer has the legal duty to investigate the accuracy of any statements made in advertising; therefore it is vital that anyone who is responsible for writing advertisements be well aware of advertising regulations.

Bear in mind that even though the dealerships will likely disclose the vehicles’ previous histories at some point, the dealer may still not be off the hook. Some advertising regulations indicate that if the first contact with a consumer is secured by deception, a violation may occur even though the true facts are made known to the buyer before he enters into the contract of purchase or lease.

It’s important to keep these concepts in mind when preparing an advertisement:


• Advertising is considered deceptive or misleading if “members of the public are likely to be deceived” or the advertisement has a “tendency or capacity to mislead the public”.



• Since statements and representations in advertisements are evaluated based on their tendency to deceive, no actual harm to consumers may need to occur for there to be a violation.



• The fact that others were, are, or will be engaged in like practices will not be considered a defense.



• Statements susceptible to both a misleading and a truthful interpretation will likely be construed to be deceptive.



• Puffery is defined as an advertising or sales presentation relying on exaggerations, opinions, and superlatives, with little or no credible evidence to support its vague claims. Puffery may be tolerated to an extent so long as it does not amount to misrepresentation (false claim of possessing certain positive attributes or of not possessing certain negative attributes).



The rules for good advertising are mostly common sense. Make sure your message is clear, truthful, easy to understand, and not subject to multiple interpretations. It’s not just about staying within legal guidelines either. Show your customers that you play by the rules – chances are they’ll thank you for it.

6 comments:

  1. I use vAuto to write my descriptions and those are phrases from their Autowriter. Sounds like the person just went off the Carfax 1 owner logo in the inventory and checked off one owner when generating the description.

    I always click through to actually view the report and ID the type of owner it was to make sure we're accurate in the on-line description, I think everybody should do this just to cover their azz.

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  2. That makes sense. Thanks for the info, Omied!

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  3. I just don't know for them, deception may be their asset in this deal. And may be they're just prying around some helpless victims.

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  4. Here are just a few more Jim, 75,000 Baby doll miles, Ice Cold AC,
    A new demo is not a new car anymore.....
    Undisclosed Demonstrator, Demo, Executive Vehicle, Brass Hat and Program Car

    New Vehicles that are used by a dealership for the purpose of demonstrating the various characteristics and qualities of that vehicle or a similar make and model are often referred to as a Demonstrator or a Demo. If however, the manufacturer or dealership uses a vehicle for their own internal purposes, the vehicle is often referred to as an Executive Car or a Brass Hat. More loosely used a Program Car could refer to an "Executive Car" or a "Demo", but more often refers to a Prior Rental Car, Loan Vehicle, a Fleet Vehicle or even an Off-Lease Vehicle.

    When a new vehicle that was operated by any factory or dealership representative is sold to a retail buyer, the vehicle is considered used and must be disclosed to the buyer as such. The dealership that sells this Executive Vehicle or Factory Demo is not allowed to not describe the vehicle as new in any way and if they choose to advertise the vehicle, then they must clearly and conspicuously disclose the previous use of the vehicle as a Demonstrator, Demo, Executive Vehicle, Brass Hat, Service Vehicle, or Program Car.

    In disclosing the vehicle as a Demonstrator or an Executive Vehicle, the dealership must give the buyer a Certificate of Used Vehicle (REG 496) to sign and may not charge the buyer any portion of the licensing fees that were paid by the dealership to register the Demonstrator. A signature on the Certificate of Used Vehicle cannot be signed by power of attorney and the selling dealership must disclose the remaining amount or factory warranty.
    In disclosing the vehicle as a Demonstrator or an Executive Vehicle, the dealership must give the buyer a Certificate of Used Vehicle (REG 496) to sign and may not charge the buyer any portion of the licensing fees that were paid by the dealership to register the Demonstrator. A signature on the Certificate of Used Vehicle cannot be signed by power of attorney and the selling dealership must disclose the remaining amount or factory warranty.


    source:http://lemonlawautofraud.com/undisclosed-demonstrator-demo-executive-vehicle-brass-hat-and-program-car

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  5. Very good topic Jim. Keep the posts coming! DTG

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