What's the deal with DISCLAIMERS?

[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

I really don't "get" the whole concept of running disclaimers in ads. At least 25% of every TV pharmaceutical spot is side-effects/disclaimers (on a product that a licensed doctor has to prescribe in the first place ... why are they doing mass appeal advertising?). But in radio...it's usually the car ads that jam 30 seconds of copy into 10-15 seconds...digitally speed it up so it's clipped and distorted as all hell ... and no one understands it (not to mention the tuneout factor of something so grating airing ... ESPECIALLY on a lite AC or Classical station).

Is the process just completely locked down by idiot lawyers who THINK they are protecting someone from something ... or is just another example where media folks don't have the stones to ask "why are we even doing this?".

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Simple answer, my friend: FEDERAL REGULATIONS.

The Feds are mandating that the pharmaceutical companies include the "ifs, buts, and got'chas" in all their advertising. They can make the small print a bit less obvious in a graphic ad, but it is hard to hide the announcer talking 98.6 miles per hour to meet the legal requirement and make sure you don't really catch too many words that scare you.

It's kin-folk to the small print that now appears on cigarette cartons and advertising. We have a lot of medical connections within my immediate family so we talk about things like this. When we pick up a prescription and get two or three pages of disclaimer information, I call someone in the family and ask: "This medicine looks very, very scary. Do we want to take it?" Normally the doctor who writes the prescription will also give you a heads-up on what NOT to do when taking one of these prescriptions that comes with a "pedigree born in hell".

Been in the hospital lately for a procedure? Did they bring you an "informed consent" to sign after giving you the little speech about having informed you of what could go wrong during this surgery? "You COULD die!!!!" may be a part of that speech. That is probably brought on by the lawyers and the malpractice issues.

 

[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

Yeah...I get the "Feds" think this is working (same with FDA example you give)

but

in reality ... NO ONE IS LISTENING and yet no one does the whole "THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE" pushback!

I guess I just have this whole pet peeve about "public sector" lawheads who think that if they put this stuff in front of people their butt is covered and all is good. We see case after case after case of dumb regulations that don't do ANY good but if they are on the books these dim-wads think their exposure is covered so all is good!!

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Like a high school biology class dissecting a worm in a lab, let's take this thing apart for a moment.

You are adamant nobody is listening, nobody hears its. And yet, you HEARD it... whether you understood it or not. As far as I am concerned, the FEDs should outlaw pharmaceutical broadcast advertising. But if they tried, then comes the impossible task of deciding what is legal to advertise, and what is outlawed.

We took cigarette advertising away from broadcasting and it ended up on race cars and who knows where else.

The bigger problem than the advertising style, is the fact that many of today's prescription drugs should never have been approved in their present form. (I realize that is a PERSONAL opinion that may be hard to justify and support.)

A lot of people think labor unions are the 800-pound guerrilla in the room when it comes to lobbyists in Washington (and state houses, too) but "Big Pharma" may be the biggest, baddest lobby-group of all.

I wish you well in your campaign to clean up the pharmaceutical ads. Write back in a year or two and tell me how the campaign works out for you. ;D

P.S. Always ask your doctor as he/she hands you the prescription: What are the gotcha's I need to be aware of when I take this stuff. Will it make me have internal bleeding? Will it cause me to lose my hair? Will it give me erectile dysfunction? Will it create an addiction to the stuff? Can I just quit when I get tired of it, or do I have to go through a phased-withdrawal? Will it ever cause me to go "bat-dung crazy" at a social event? Been here. Done that. Got the hospital bill to prove it.

 

[Bongwater]

"ProductmaycausedrowsinessheadacheupsetstomachandconstipationOthersideeffectssuchasheartattackstrokeanddeathhavealsobeenreportedIfyouhaveanyofthesesymptomspleaseseeyourdoctorIfyouhaveanerectionlastingmorethanthreehoursseeyourdoctorforagreatgameofringtossVoidwhereprohibitedOffervalidonlyinAntarcticaNopurchasenecessaryCompleterulesinsidespeciallymarkedpackagesOddsofwinningmathmaticallyimpossibleOfferendsFebruary30th2012...."

I feel your pain LBB......

 

[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

GRC ... great points.

I'm not trying to get the ads off the air, etc. .... your cig example works well for me. Today if we had cig ads on the air, they would want all the stuff on the side of the packages to be embedded in the ad. In the end...putting the brand name on a race car accomplishes the goal of generating awareness. I'm saying follow that model and just make the on-air ads SIMPLE and save the legal jargon until the point of an actual transaction -- not at the time of a campaign.

We should use common sense ... in pharma it might say "be sure to discuss possible complications and interactions with your doctor" and you're done (rather than listing ALL potential issues). In the case of vehicles...most people aren't gonna pop $25K on a car based on hearing a :60 spot ... so the concept is WHO is the dealer, WHAT do they sell ... and IF there is a "catch" it gets a mention of one sentence ... not 15 seconds of fine print on-the-air (e.g. "5 vehicles available at advertised price" or whatever....).

Simple = memorable and you can still make sure the "buyer beware" concept is clearly in there in a way people can ABSORB and HEAR it!!!

 

[monkeygirl]

I do voiceover for radio and TV and have noticed, since these new regulations, that advertisers and/or copywriters are requesting a "disclaimer type delivery" for spot tags that sometimes aren't even really a disclaimer or at times, not even really a tag!

They want a low tone, super-fast, almost mumbling delivery on that last 10 seconds of their spots. I don't know why they do this but it sounds awful to me. However, they pay me so, I read the copy the way they want me to.

Does anyone know why this is becoming so popular or what its purpose is?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

In the case of vehicles...most people aren't gonna pop $25K on a car based on hearing a :60 spot ... so the concept is WHO is the dealer, WHAT do they sell ... and IF there is a "catch" it gets a mention of one sentence ... not 15 seconds of fine print on-the-air (e.g. "5 vehicles available at advertised price" or whatever....).

I think maybe car dealers were among the first radio advertisers to get hung with this mumbling fine print thingy. (I don't know if they have received any relief in recent years, but back in the 1980s the Federal Trade Commission told car dealers: If you mention that financing is available to help you purchase a car, and you mentioned any detail of financing like "up to 60 months" or "Interest rates as low as xxxx" then you had to do the full ball-of-wax mumble business about financing details.

For some car dealers, they are simply in the business of selling finance. Cars are just the "vehicle" that allows to to sell loans. I was programming and serving as system administrator for a chain of car dealers when all that foolishness began. We could finance your care with 30 or 40 different choices of loan company or bank. I had to change ALL the form printing software for all those forms when the new FTC rules began. And the mumbling car dealer ads began.

 

[Steenman]

Is there an actual question here or just a bunch of ranting by people who know nothing about what they are talking about?
I am intimately familiar with auto disclaimers, why they exist, who mandates them, and why, I can also tell you that any radio announcer who 'mumbles' or intentionally tries to make the disclaimers unintelligible can actually be held PERSONALLY lliable (and fined) by the State of Wash AG and can point to recent cases where this has actually happened in this State, so 'doing what you were told' is not a defense I wish it were but you should be very careful about participating in that kind of activity.
Disclaimers are supposed to 'conspicuous, legible, and easy for the 'average' consumer (whoever that is) to understand. It's a little (no a lot) like Carlin's '7 dirty words' so most smart dealership err on the side of 'too much disclosure.
The AG is only one of touchpoints on this, virtually all new car dealers also have brand compliance issues and standards imposed by their franchisors (ie: Chevrolet). THOSE standards are rigorous and extremely well defined there are entire website and department dedicated to ensuring compliance.

 

[Wonderfulwino]

Disclaimers are supposed to 'conspicuous, legible, and easy for the 'average' consumer (whoever that is) to understand.

Despite any implied threat, the enforcement of this rule seems... lightly enforced. On radio, the lighting fast high speed voice at the end of a spot may be audible but hardly intellegible and easy to understand. On the tube, the visual disclaimers that are in microscopic font at the bottom of the screen are not (if you really wanted to) readable. Even with a full-on high def 51 inch screen you cant see it.
Regardless, disclaimers serve one purpose and one purpose only, and that's for the advertiser to demonstrate to the viewer/listener that they didnt hide a thing from you. eg: Dont say we didnt tell you so. A liabilty speed bump/

 

[AQH]

Is there an actual question here or just a bunch of ranting by people who know nothing about what they are talking about?

Boy, you must be the life of a party.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

.....I can also tell you that any radio announcer who 'mumbles' or intentionally tries to make the disclaimers unintelligible can actually be held PERSONALLY lliable (and fined) by the State of Wash AG and can point to recent cases where this has actually happened in this State .....

In reading your post, I think I am reading that the state of Washington has some rules that the rest of the country does not get to enjoy. ;D

 

[TowerLamp]

... I can also tell you that any radio announcer who 'mumbles' or intentionally tries to make the disclaimers unintelligible can actually be held PERSONALLY lliable (and fined) by the State of Wash AG and can point to recent cases where this has actually happened in this State, so 'doing what you were told' is not a defense I wish it were but you should be very careful about participating in that kind of activity...

Really? I'd love to see some link or info on this. It would have grave repercussions within the VO community. Please share the info.

 

[Steenman]

There was a an agency based in Seattle I'll spare you the name but if you think "Big Giant Car Sale" radio you'll get the idea. The AG decided that they would go after the principals of that agency personally to teach them a lesson and never mind that they were an agent of the client and it cost them personally and dearly (you don't hear those ads anymore and the company that did them no longer exists). So the shield of "I'm just the agency/radio station/ voice talent does NOT apply. That being said, I think the AG has to decide what level they want to pursue you and yes it's unlikely they will come after you if all you did was voice a spot. Unlikely, but not impossible and within their rights as the as is written (it helps that they write the laws).
The AG provides wirtten guidelines and there are RCW statutes and also they do seminar and web conferences thru the WASADA (Wa State Auto Dealers) all designed to educate dealerships, AND THEIR AGENCIES AND ADVERTISING PARTNERS as to what the rules are and how to conform to them. Contact them to see when they plan another one, there is a webinar you can get I think. I've done a number of them and glad to share what I know here.

 

[Steenman]

Also there ARE rules about the size of type for tv ads and how fast you can say something on the radio whether you know them or choose to do them or if you don't whether you get fined or called out is a different story.

 

[jefflaurence]

That is nuts. So many of us VO people record these disclaimers and send them to a production house. No lawyer would attempt to hand that on us. We have NO control of how the audio is sliced and diced.

A lot of dealers are now delivering the fast disclaimer at the FRONT of the spot..to allude that it is a disclaimer from the previous spot.

Now..here's what is being done legally to deliver the disclaimer information and NOT tie up the spot time.

"...call 888-CAR-INFO for restrictions and specific details"

They run the disclaimer as part of a recorded message at the number provided. It has been approved by the automotive retailers association, and authorized by many states AGs. Further it requires a phone call. Most people won't do it. If it was on a website it would be too easy to print and save, but that is what some states are requiring.

A glossary of phrases:


"5 available exclusive of all advertised offers" (only five available and none qualify for any of the special deals heard in the spot)

"..choose from any vehicle in the dealer's SAVINGS ZONE" (these cars are ex-rental cars and are probably not worth the gas it takes to see them)

"..and EVERY credit application will POSITIVELY be accepted!!" (the finance guy will take your piece of paper, and probably turn you down)