State Specific Advertising and Marketing Forms - Advertising Law

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Marketing Forms FAQ Advertising Example

What is marketing?

Marketing in the modern sense covers a vast range of activities including advertising, public relations, promotion, all types of sales, and aspects of distribution-including also specialties within this field such as market research, strategy, and planning. In those corporations predominantly engaged in selling to the consumer, marketing and sales are typically separate functions, but with sales subordinated to and managed by the more prestigious marketing function. Marketing thus represents the overall strategic, intelligence, and communications function whereas sales are detail-oriented implementations obeying and carrying out a general marketing strategy.

What is a marketing contract?

A marketing contract is a business's agreement with an agency. This agreement is for the promotion of sales of the business's goods or services. A marketing agreement can also be an agreement between a cooperative and its members, by which the members agree to sell through the cooperative, and the cooperative agrees to obtain an agreed price.

More Information Marketing Pdf

Under the Federal Trade Commission Act:

advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;
advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and
advertisements cannot be unfair.

Additional laws apply to ads for specialized products like consumer leases, credit, 900 telephone numbers, and products sold through mail order or telephone sales. And every state has consumer protection laws that govern ads running in that state. The FTC looks at both "expressed" and "implied" claims. Under the law, advertisers must have proof to back up expressed and implied claims that consumers take from an ad. The FTC looks at what the ad does not say - that is, if the failure to include information leaves consumers with a misimpression about the product. For example, if a company advertised a collection of books, the ad would be deceptive if it did not disclose that consumers actually would receive abridged versions of the books. The FTC looks at whether the claim would be "material" - that is, important to a consumer's decision to buy or use the product. Examples of material claims are representations about a product's performance, features, safety, price, or effectiveness. The FTC looks at whether the advertiser has sufficient evidence to support the claims in the ad. The law requires that advertisers have proof before the ad runs.

Federal and state multilevel marketing and anti-pyramid statutes are components of a comprehensive consumer protection umbrella. These laws are designed to protect individuals from being defrauded through illegitimate programs which lure participants with the promise of easy money by compensating them from the investments of additional participants rather than from legitimate product sales. These programs have been called "Ponzi schemes," "airplane plans," "pyramids," "chain letters," and many other names. Although known in the United States only during the twentieth century, such programs have cost their participants hundreds of millions of dollars. Federal and state regulatory agencies have sought to proscribe such illegal activity in multiple ways, including the use of anti-pyramid, mail fraud, business opportunity, franchise, lottery, and securities laws.

Relevant legal forms include: