What is considered false advertising?

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I've been to all the major/well known PCMO manufacturers websites researching PDSs and such. The one odd thing I noticed while visiting them is that every last one of those mother [censored] say "unsurpassed wear protection". Not everybody can be "unsurpassed"! If one is then by logic the others cannot be. They also all say they're better than Mobil1 but ExxonMobil is still taking everyone to school when it comes to sales. Even the people that know good oil mostly seem to choose Mobil1. If these other companies were so much better, why haven't their sales held a candle to ExxonMobil's wallet? So when everybody on the market is better than Mobil and everybody is apparently "unsurpassed" in wear protection, what exactly is false advertising then?
 
I agree, don't get me wrong.
However I have seen many times where second rate products are the darling of the industry because of forums like this.
Also market penetration as well and price.

Lets say Mobil was at the middle of the good oil list but in every store known to man, easy to acquire, the price is fair, and they out advertise anyone 50 to 1.
That oil would be number 1.

I also dislike those that take on the head guy to get sales.
I live that daily.
They steal your stuff and in three weeks they are better than you.
But they never last!
 
Originally Posted By: camrydriver111
M1 must be some good stuff.


Lol this! Exactly this. I'm about to run some M1 0w-40 in my 2AZ. What year is your Camry btw?
 
Unsurpassed wear protection is an example of puffery. It's legal in advertising. It means we believe our oil is best. There are no specifics, so it's a meaningless subjective statement.
 
Originally Posted By: javacontour
Unsurpassed wear protection is an example of puffery. It's legal in advertising. It means we believe our oil is best. There are no specifics, so it's a meaningless subjective statement.


How is that allowed to be legal?
 
Originally Posted By: Luisraul924
Originally Posted By: javacontour
Unsurpassed wear protection is an example of puffery. It's legal in advertising. It means we believe our oil is best. There are no specifics, so it's a meaningless subjective statement.


How is that allowed to be legal?


Because it is marketing and advertising, free speech, poetic license, and it is NOT illegal to make advertising sloagans.

Why are you not as concerned with beer commercials, soft drink commercials, insurance advertising, attorney advertising, and the such as you are with oil claims?
 
Subjective means opinion. Opinion is not illegal. It's up to the consumer to think objectively. Is Coke the real thing? What does that even mean? Is Pepsi the choice of a new generation? What does that mean? What does unsurpassed wear protection even mean? It's a subjective statement, not a fact. How are they measuring wear protection?

Anyone can claim they are number one with little or no definition of what it neans to be number one.
 
Originally Posted By: Luisraul924
I've been to all the major/well known PCMO manufacturers websites researching PDSs and such. The one odd thing I noticed while visiting them is that every last one of those mother [censored] say "unsurpassed wear protection". Not everybody can be "unsurpassed"! If one is then by logic the others cannot be. They also all say they're better than Mobil1 but ExxonMobil is still taking everyone to school when it comes to sales. Even the people that know good oil mostly seem to choose Mobil1. If these other companies were so much better, why haven't their sales held a candle to ExxonMobil's wallet? So when everybody on the market is better than Mobil and everybody is apparently "unsurpassed" in wear protection, what exactly is false advertising then?



Actually shell is the volume leader in sales,so your "taking everyone to school" idea is wrong.
Iirc Mobil is 3rd worldwide behind shell and castrol.

As far as marketing is concerned since unsurpassed wear protection isn't really claiming anything specific such as an industry recognized wear spec so it doesn't mean much.
Pennzoil claims the least wear via some industry recognized method in the 5w-30 flavour and the competition isn't challenging the claim,which is very interesting considering the rp labelling issue among others.
 
Originally Posted By: Luisraul924
Originally Posted By: camrydriver111
M1 must be some good stuff.


Lol this! Exactly this. I'm about to run some M1 0w-40 in my 2AZ. What year is your Camry btw?


97 V6 with 250k mi. The famous sludger.

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Why are you not as concerned with beer commercials, soft drink commercials, insurance advertising, attorney advertising, and the such as you are with oil claims?


Oil is pretty high on the importance list.
laugh.gif
 
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Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Originally Posted By: Luisraul924
Originally Posted By: javacontour
Unsurpassed wear protection is an example of puffery. It's legal in advertising. It means we believe our oil is best. There are no specifics, so it's a meaningless subjective statement.


How is that allowed to be legal?


Because it is marketing and advertising, free speech, poetic license, and it is NOT illegal to make advertising sloagans.

Why are you not as concerned with beer commercials, soft drink commercials, insurance advertising, attorney advertising, and the such as you are with oil claims?


Because "unsurpassed wear protection" is a measurable value/metric. "Our oil is better than their oil" is not. I don't have a problem with fluff statements because they're clearly fluff. When a statement is made with a possibility of proven data behind it (when there clearly isn't) then that would be, in my eyes, false advertising.
 
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Originally Posted By: camrydriver111
97 V6 with 250k mi. The famous sludger.

Ah yes. Have you thought of running the engine hotter (say with a TRD radiator cap and higher temp thermostat) as a preventative measure?
Originally Posted By: camrydriver111
Oil is pretty high on the importance list.
laugh.gif


+1
 
Originally Posted By: Luisraul924
Originally Posted By: javacontour
Unsurpassed wear protection is an example of puffery. It's legal in advertising. It means we believe our oil is best. There are no specifics, so it's a meaningless subjective statement.


How is that allowed to be legal?

It's called M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G...which means some idiot wrote the ad copy who doesn't understand anything about the chemistry.

You must learn to separate the Bravo from the Bravo Sierra, else this world will drive you Tango Uniform!
 
Our oil creates a hydro-pneumatic cushion between vital engine parts.

Yup! I just described foamed up engine oil. I didn't lie, I just sugar coated it.

Anyone can make test results to favor their product. Figures never lie, but liars figure.
 
Quote:
Because "unsurpassed wear protection" is a measurable value/metric. "Our oil is better than their oil" is not.


It is the same thing. It is an inference by slogan.

What WOULD open you up to litigation (by company B) is to publish some baseline of your oil's wear results, and then say Oil B has higher wear when industry tests showed the opposite.

Unless you are able to establish that there is an industry standard for wear, your argument is vacuous.
 
Originally Posted By: Michael_P
Our oil creates a hydro-pneumatic cushion between vital engine parts.

Yup! I just described foamed up engine oil. I didn't lie, I just sugar coated it.

Anyone can make test results to favor their product. Figures never lie, but liars figure.


Used to see ads for spurious spanish fly. How many looked up the definition of spurious?
 
Originally Posted By: Luisraul924
Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Originally Posted By: Luisraul924
Originally Posted By: javacontour
Unsurpassed wear protection is an example of puffery. It's legal in advertising. It means we believe our oil is best. There are no specifics, so it's a meaningless subjective statement.


How is that allowed to be legal?


Because it is marketing and advertising, free speech, poetic license, and it is NOT illegal to make advertising sloagans.

Why are you not as concerned with beer commercials, soft drink commercials, insurance advertising, attorney advertising, and the such as you are with oil claims?


Because "unsurpassed wear protection" is a measurable value/metric. "Our oil is better than their oil" is not. I don't have a problem with fluff statements because they're clearly fluff. When a statement is made with a possibility of proven data behind it (when there clearly isn't) then that would be, in my eyes, false advertising.


How is it measurable? It has no specifics and could be referring to anything. It doesn't even say what kind of wear, under what conditions, etc. It's just a fluff marketing term. Now if they said according to so and so test then it could be challenged.
 
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