Manny Marketer writes a new ad campaign touting the health benefits of smoking cigarettes. His client, a tobacco company, loves it, and they decide to run the advertisement on a cable channel. Manny, however, doesn't have any factual information on which to base his claims. The tobacco company doesn't care, and informs Manny that it will be "no problem" to get a scientific report listing the many health benefits of cigarettes and smoking. Manny is delighted and runs the ads. Later, the FTC sues Manny for making false and misleading advertisements. By this time, however, Manny has several scientific reports in hand backing up his advertisements. Who wins, and why?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The FTC would win because advertisements must be supported by evidence at the time they are run, not obtained after the fact. Manny's actions of running ads without having factual information at the time of their broadcast violate this principle, making the ads misleading regardless of the evidence he obtained later.

Manny Marketer Writes a New Ad Campaign Touting the Health