Misleading Advertising: In Search of a Measurement Methodology

Based on theoretical and policy considerations, two criteria for a feasible procedure to detect misleading advertising are derived. Current concepts for detecting misleading advertising are reviewed and found wanting with respect to these criteria. Due to the orientation toward cases, misleading advertising can be detected only in specific instances, while judgments about a certain ad's capacity to mislead still must be made on intuitive grounds. A different procedure is presented, the misleading components approach, that aims at detecting certain types of misleading messages which might be found in many advertisements, thus avoiding the problems associated with case-oriented methodologies. Results are reported from a pilot study that show that it is possible to identify misleading components in advertising.