Tropicana
July 31st, 2013
Tropicana claims in this television ad that “if you want the world’s best fruit and vegetable juice, look in the cooler” as a shelf collapses to reveal a presumably more-stable refrigerator full of Tropicana juices.
But does Tropicana actually make “the world’s best fruit and vegetable juice”? Campbell’s, the maker of V8 fruit and vegetable juices, challenged Tropicana’s claim with NAD. After reviewing Tropicana’s claims, NAD ruled that the ad constituted “puffery.” Puffery is apparently a-okay with NAD as long as the puffers claims don’t put down another product without substantiation. Tropicana is still running the advertisement above.
We at TINA.org are maybe less okay with puffery, and consumers should know that Tropicana’s claims about making the “world’s best fruit and vegetable juice” are unsubstantiated fluff. For more on food marketing, click here.
The National Advertising Division, or NAD, is an investigative unit of the advertising industry’s system of self-regulation. It is administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus. NAD asks advertisers to substantiate or change their claims in advertisements. As part of a voluntary system of self-regulation, however, its recommendations can be ignored by the offending advertisers. In those instances, NAD refers the offender to federal consumer protection agencies.