Marketing Science—Consumerists, Economists and Marketers

The age of consumerism marches on. The FTC has now suggested that three manufacturers ought to spend a quarter of their advertising budgets for a year explaining that their prior advertising was misleading. These three cases raise some very difficult legal issues regarding the nature of deception and what is a reasonable atonement for advertising sins. But underlying the hoopla is a very real problem that must plague marketers and certainly provides opportunity for management scientists. It is a problem that has little to do with the law.