TRUTH IN ADVERTISING
Established members of the advertising community sought
to protect consumers, force disreputable competitors out of
business, and embellish their own image through a truthin-advertising campaign in the early twentieth century.
Many advertisements in the late nineteenth century were
“outright lies,” historian Daniel Pope has noted. Hawking
miracle-working patent medicines or elaborate get-richquick schemes to unsuspecting consumers, these types of
advertisements sullied the reputations of legitimate advertisers. Reading notices, disguised advertisements appearing as news in newspapers and magazines, also came under
attack for being fraudulent, misleading, deceitful, and
dishonest.
Recognizing the validity of these accusations and their deleterious effect on the industry, established advertisers formed
the Associated Advertising Clubs of America (AACA) in
1906 to improve the industry’s ethical standards and to promote professionalism. Driven by the Progressive Era belief
that publicity could solve problems, this national organization pushed for truth in advertising at its 1911 convention.
By this time, the industry was ready to confront the
problem through government regulation. Printers’ Ink, the
leading advertising journal founded by George P. Rowell in
1888, became the chief advocate for the truth-in-advertising
movement soon after the convention. The journal promoted
truth in advertising using the “rotten apple” theory. One
wrong statement in an advertisement undermined consumers’ confidence in all ads, and one discredited advertiser
harmed all advertisers.
Printers’ Ink editor John Romer asked attorney Harry
Nims, author of Nims on Unfair Competition, to write a model statute outlawing dishonest advertising. Recommending state, not federal, legislation to take advantage of
the local advertising clubs, Nims drafted a 153-word sentence making it a misdemeanor for any one selling a product
whose “advertisement contains any assertion, representation or statement of fact which is untrue, deceptive or misleading.” The local clubs could monitor advertisements and
investigate complaints, Nims reasoned. Following up on his
idea, AACA leaders formed a national vigilance committee
in 1912 to encourage local clubs to begin their own “vigilance” work. By mid-1914, about one hundred local committees were active around the country.
At the same time, Printers’ Ink lobbied state legislatures to enact the truth-in-advertising statute. Ohio was
the first state to enact the law in 1913, followed by Minnesota, after a particularly active local advertising club
fought for it. By 1921, twenty-three states had adopted
the statute outlawing fraudulent advertising, though some
diluted its provisions.
Critics complained that the laws did not go far enough
in regulating the advertising industry because they did
not prohibit exaggerated advertising claims nor did they
address the subtly persuasive techniques becoming more
popular such as appealing to body image or status symbols.
Some critics also thought national legislation would have
been more effective at cleansing the marketplace of fraudulent advertisers. The Federal Trade Commission, created by
Congress in 1914, eventually filled this role, though initially
it focused on protecting businesses—not consumers—from
unfair competition.
By World War I, the advertising industry had moved
beyond the truth-in-advertising movement to emphasize service during the national crisis. Soon after, the
local advertising clubs evolved into the Better Business
Bureau.
Although the truth-in-advertising campaign and subsequent Printers’ Ink statutes did not dramatically alter the
nature of American advertising, they did help to purge the
industry of the most blatant abuses. Language from the
model statute also contributed key elements to the modern
definition of what constitutes deceptive advertising.
Further Reading
Presbrey, Frank. The History and Development of Advertising.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.,
1929.
Fox, Stephen. The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its Creators. New York: William Morrow and
Company, Inc., 1984.
Pope, Daniel. Making of Modern Advertising. New York: Basic
Books, Inc., 1983.
Printers’ Ink: A Journal for Advertisers; 50 Years, 1888–1938.
New York: Printers’ Ink Publishing Company, 1938.
Schultze, Quentin J. “‘An Honorable Place’: The Quest for Professional Advertising Education, 1900–1917.” Business History
Review 56 no. 1 (Spring 1982): 16–32.
Linda Lawson