The FTC Act requires, among other things, that an advertisement must be truthful and nondeceptive, and advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims. It can be very difficult to understand when a marketing message is deceptive. One way to get a better handle on it is to understand that the FTC doesn’t view only what is directly stated by an advertiser, but also what could be reasonably inferred by consumers in the given situation. ⁴⁵ Specifically, there are direct claims and two types of implications that can be inferred from a claim. We illustrate with examples:

• Direct claim: Royal makes tires for the Jeep Liberty. If you have a Jeep Liberty and find that Royal doesn’t make tires for the Jeep Liberty, this is a false claim.

• Logical implication: Royal makes tires for all SUVs. Because the Jeep Liberty is an SUV, if Royal doesn’t make tires for the Jeep Liberty, this is again a false claim.

Direct claims and logical implications are relatively straightforward. If the evidence does not support the claim, the claim is said to be false.

However, another category of implications exists called pragmatic implications. Pragmatic implications are the implied meanings (that are neither directly stated nor logically implied) that consumers derive when interpreting language in a “practical” way . For example, if a friend tells you, when asked, that they “can” come right over to help you with a project, you might infer that this means they will come to help. Notice, however, that they didn’t actually (directly) say they would help, only that they could . Your inference that they would help is called a pragmatic implication. Inferences are part of the perceptual process (Chapter 8). Let’s go back to the Royal tires example one more time.

• Pragmatic implication: Need new tires for your Jeep Liberty? Royal can help.

Many consumers would infer from this claim that what Royal meant to say was that they have tires to fit the Jeep Liberty. But again, notice that they never directly made a claim to that effect. The question is, can Royal be held liable for deceptive advertising in this situation? The answer is yes if they don’t indeed have tires to fit the Jeep Liberty because the FTC, when judging deception, looks not only at what is directly stated, but also at what a reasonable consumer might infer.

A few categories of pragmatic implications are:

• Hedge words –words that pragmatically imply something not literally stated. An example would be “Weedex fights weeds.” Many consumers seeing this statement would likely believe that what is being claimed is that Weedex “kills” weeds. Because Weedex never directly claimed this, one might be tempted to say that they did not deceive consumers. But, if the FTC judged that, among other things, a consumer acting reasonably would infer that the claim meant “kill” and that in fact Weedex does not kill weeds (or Weedex doesn’t have sufficient evidence to support that claim), it could deem the statement as deceptive advertising.

• Juxtaposed imperatives –this is a fancy way of saying that you put two unrelated statements together in a manner that makes them seem related and changes their meaning. Consider the following: “Have a safe winter. Drive on Royal tires.” Many consumers seeing this claim would likely infer something to the effect that “using Royal tires will help me drive safer in the winter.” However, what was directly stated was simply “Have a safe winter.…” and “Drive on Royal tires….” Again, even though the claim was not directly made, the fact that it was indirectly made (through a pragmatic implication) means it could be judged as deceptive.

If this sounds complicated, it is. In some industries, like insurance, there are literally whole units dedicated to “policing” what their marketing materials say in order to ensure compliance in terms of the FTC Act and other state and federal laws that might apply. The bottom line in marketing communication is that “just because you don’t state something directly, doesn’t mean you didn’t state it at all.” And the law provides recourse for both false direct claims as well as false implied claims.

In what way does understanding consumer perception help marketers avoid deceptive advertising?