Taco Bell: Can you tell the expert is a fake?

Plenty of television commercials contain dramatizations and ridiculous situations that can't possibly be real. But when a commercial skirts the line between reality and make-believe, does it become deceptive? I think it can, especially when the protagonist is portrayed as an expert who recommends the product being peddled.

To wit: Taco Bell is running a television ad with a supposed "shrimp blogger" who discovers the chain's new shrimp taco. It's so good, he says, that he doesn't know whether to blog about it or keep it to himself. Is this obviously ridiculous? Not quite. It's entirely possible that someone in the world blogs only about shrimp. Could a post on a blog cause Taco Bell to sell out of its shrimp tacos? Well, if the mainstream media picked it up, then sure, why not?

The problem is, some consumers might actually believe that this rugged gentleman with an antipodean accent really is an expert on shrimp. He's not - he claims to have blogged about and eaten something called a "Hercules shrimp", which doesn't exist. But what consumer would have gone to the trouble to check that little factoid? If any consumers do end up believing that Taco Bell has found a real shrimp expert to recommend their product, then this is deliberate, or at least negligent, deception.

American Beverage Association: They WHAT?

New York State is considering a tax on sugary soft drinks, and the American Beverage Association (you can guess who funds them) is running television ads opposing the tax. The ads have a man described as a New York minimarket owner saying that the tax will hurt his customers and his business. In fact, he says, his customers are on such tight budgets that "the majority of them" come into his shop with "notepads and calculators." Really?

Actually, it doesn't matter if he's exaggerating. The state is considering the tax because some politicians think that sugary soft drinks contribute to obesity, which ends up costing taxpayers money through higher costs in government health insurance. If the politicians are right, sugary soft drinks are like cigarettes and alcohol; consuming them makes other people worse off, so it's better for society if you don't consume as many of them as you'd like. That's the argument that the American Beverage Association should be trying to disprove, with scientific research and budgetary studies. But they're not - they're talking about notepads and calculators instead.

U.S. Marine Corps: Not so exclusive after all

The Marine Corps has a relatively new ad campaign called "America's Few" (read about it here). Television spots currently airing claim that many Americans will hear the call to serve, but few will become Marines. That's not exactly true. Figures from past years (I found various sources from the 1980s through 2000, though only anecdotal sources for more recent years) suggest that 85 to 90 percent of recruits do in fact make it through training and become Marines. The vast majority of those who don't are rejected for medical reasons. Now, this may be a testament to the effectiveness of military training or the selectiveness of military recruiting. Indeed, you wouldn't want the Marine Corps's training program to waste a lot of money on recruits who couldn't make the cut. Exclusive, however, it is not.

Michelin: A meaningless claim

Michelin's television commercials for its A/S "Energy Saver" tires say that putting the tires on your car can save you up to 109 gallons of fuel. By itself, this number doesn't mean anything. Is it 109 gallons per year, or over the life of the tires? If the latter, how long is the life of the tires? What kind of car and tires do you have to have now in order for that number to be correct?

The fine print says you'd need to drive 55,000 miles on the Michelin tires to realize the fuel savings, which are estimated versus a specific Bridgestone tire, the Turanza. So, if you buy the A/S instead of the Turanza, you might save about $300 over five years of regular driving. Here's the kicker: a quick check on Google shows that the Turanza sells for about $100 less per tire than the A/S, or $400 less per set - more than the supposed fuel savings. Moreover, by buying the Turanza you'd pay $400 less up front, instead of waiting five years to save $300 on gas with the A/S. It's not such a great deal after all.

Putting the potential savings aside, is this good advertising? If you don't read the fine print, the ad's spoken claim is so vague that it's impossible to evaluate. Moreover, the Michelin web page that cites the same 109-gallon figure doesn't even have any fine print - truly advertising at its worst.

First Liberty Financial: Lessons not learned

First Liberty Financial is running ads on television that take the form of fake news briefs. The top story? According to the ad, the federal government has pushed down interest rates on home loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration to all-time lows. This is untrue in both fact and concept. The federal government does not directly control long-term interest rates like those on home loans. The Federal Reserve controls short-term rates, and the Congress controls spending and debt levels; both may affect long-term interest rates, but so can a million other factors. But regardless of what you think about why long-term interest rates move up and down, one thing is true: today, interest rates on home loans are not at their all-time lows. As this graph shows, rates for 30-year mortgages are about half a point above their recent lows. It's a shame, but the cheap mortgage industry seems just as deceptive as ever.

By the way, the Federal Housing Administration, a New Deal program in operation since 1934, only insures about 5 million mortgages in the United States. Though it does set limits on the size of the loans it will insure and the ability of the borrower to pay, it does not set any limits on interest rates.

Cash4Gold: How much is more?

American television is filled with commercials for companies that will turn your old gold jewelry into cash. You just send it in, and they send you a check, with no obligation to accept the deal.  It sounds straightforward enough, but the ads are a little misleading.  At the moment, Cash4Gold says it's offering a 25 percent bonus over its usual rates, presumably to entice consumers to try and grab that extra cash.  Yet in general, such claims are too vague to mean anything; you have to ask, "25 percent more than what?"  Cash4Gold never says what its regular rates are, nor do it say how often its regular rates change.  This is an important issue, since the price of gold has risen by 37 percent in the last year.  If consumers are getting 25 percent more than they did this time last year, Cash4Gold is pocketing the other 12 percent... but there's no way to know from the ads.

AT&T versus Verizon: Apples and oranges?

Verizon has been slamming AT&T in its television commercials with claims that AT&T's third-generation wireless network offers far less coverage than Verizon's.  The Verizon coverage map for the United States certainly looks a lot more comprehensive than AT&T's.  But now, AT&T is responding with ads showing another, much more flattering map of its coverage (and the actor Luke Wilson running down a long list of the cities that the map includes).  The AT&T commercials, however, do not specify that the coverage is on a third-generation network; it looks as though AT&T's claims may rest on its garden-variety mobile phone network.  Is AT&T really countering Verizon's ads in such a disingenuous way?  Wait for the next round to find out.