Brief Three - Unethical Advertising

But Wait... There's More!

Americans sit on their coaches each night, flipping through the television guide, watching mindless television. Every once and a while, a commercial will pop up with the next must-have product that, if you call within the hour, you can get fifteen for the price of one. These products are found to make your life easier, and everyone seems to think they need it at that very moment. Each product has been manufactured and marketed as the next must-have.

Did you know that there is a checklist a product must meet in order to fall into the as seen on television product? Well, there is! The criteria the products must meet are relatively weak. In fact, the product doesn't even have to be ready; there just has to be a prototype that is close enough. As consumers, we are literally buying a product that is not even ready yet!

While we see these ads on television, we also see a section for these products in our local supermarkets. Towards the front of the store, walking through my local Walmart, I have found myself in the "as seen on t.v." section, gawking over the products on the wall. Children are often fooled early by the products, but if were honest, we all are from time to time. However, how many of these products were really seen on television? In fact; court cases have been brought up based on the false advertising of as seen on T.V. products.

The Original Copper pan is a product that you can find in a section like this in your local store, but it was never actually found on television. This brought forth quite the scandal in the copper pan universe, as their advertising ethics were questioned. The company, Emson, who had its own line of magical as seen on T.V. copper pan, sued the makers of The Original Copper Pan (OCP), Masterpan. They called a lawsuit based upon the lines that Masterpan was selling their product with an on seen on T.V. logo displayed on the box, but it was never actually sold on television.

Emson claimed that the use of this logo was misleading to customers, but that's not all! Masterpan also seemed to heavily market their pan as the ORIGINAL copper pan. This is completely incorrect, there have been plenty of copper pans before this one, so this is truly misleading to the consumer. They have since then changed their name to, The Masterpan 10", much less appealing to the consumer. Masterpan used the art of unethical advertising to sell their product, well they tried to at least. Many companies find themselves exercising some misleading tactics and getting away with it, but Masterpan was not so lucky as their competitor, Emson, caught on.

The as seen on television world is a crazy place. Often you will find pointless objects that are explained to be a necessity and you have to act fast. Skeptical customers can even get hooked once they find one thing that seems to work, just like poor Terri B above. Sections of these clutter up our supermarkets, but we have come to know that imposters live among them. After diving into the great copper pan scandal of 2019, we see that misrepresentation can be taken to court. Companies will seemingly do almost anything to get their products in your hands, even if it means using unethical advertising. Be safe out there.