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Deceptive Advertising

Posted By TopOneTone 8 Years Ago
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TopOneTone
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As a Marketing Director of some 30 years I have always found it quite interesting to observe how advertising standards vary around the world and recently took a look at the US Federal Trade Commission site to see if US standards are radically different from legislation in my home country Australia. I was quite heartened to read this quote :

"Under the FTC Act, an act or practice is deceptive if there is a material misrepresentation or omission of information that is likely to mislead the consumer acting reasonably in the circumstances.  A misrepresentation is material if it is likely to affect consumers’ choices or conduct regarding an advertised product or the advertising for the product.

In evaluating whether an ad is deceptive, the FTC considers the net impression the ad conveys to consumers.  Because ads can communicate information through a variety of means – text, images, sounds, etc. – the FTC will look to the overall context of the interaction, not just to elements of the ad in isolation.  Put another way, both what the ad says and the format it uses to convey that information will be relevant.  Any clarifying information necessary to prevent deception must be disclosed clearly and prominently to overcome any misleading impression."

I would suggest that it may be a good idea for Reallusion to send its Marketing Department on a refresher course before Reallusion's advertising practices land it in serious strife. There are numerous examples of where Reallusion advertising has misrepresented, concealed, omitted or misled consumers into buying products that turn out to be substantially different from what was presented in the advertising. The latest example being the Professional Outfits pack.

How can any ethical marketer depict in advertising for a clothes pack, hats (which are fundamental to the profession depiction) then rely on the small print direction for the customer to refer to the inventory list to work out for themselves which items depicted are actually included in the pack. This is not a small oversight, I counted 16 images on the page of hats that are not included in the pack, that equates to nearly 30% of the characters depicted being misrepresented on hats alone. It seems to me that you were relying on the overall size of the inventory to overwhelm the customer into presuming that fundamental items would be included rather than checking everything.

I thought the Professional Outfits pack would be very useful and I bought the additional accessories and motions offer with high expectations. Having started to use it, I now realise it is incomplete and missing many key items depicted in the advertising. The thing I find hard to understand is why such items would be omitted because they are surely not that difficult for Reallusion to create. Why on earth would you want to disappoint your customers on such simple items?
I know I can get a refund, but I really want to be able to use this pack. However, I feel its incomplete for the job intended and that I have been deliberately duped by the advertising. 

As a marketer, I feel Reallusion has breached one of the key fundamentals of advertising by "over promising and under delivering" leaving the customer disappointed, rather than elated that the product turns out to be even better than was depicted. Over the last couple of years I have seen numerous examples of this, where Reallusion's good product innovation has been misrepresented in its advertising and led to disappointment and complaint, when there should have been a celebration of new innovation. So many of the issues in this forum can be traced back to a sense that "this is not what I expect or thought I was buying" and you can't blame the customer for misinterpreting, it is the job of the advertising to raise awareness and excitement, inform, build the relationship, not to mislead or fool the customer by covering up the shortcomings of the offer. Fine print disclaimers and putting the onus on the customer to work out what is included in an offer ultimately says Reallusion (Marketing) don't have the confidence in the product being able to meet the advertising claims, that if people see what it really is, they won't buy it. Do it too often and people become suspicious of all the advertising and become cautious about making a commitment to buy = "Hype until its tripe!"

I'm sure you will want to sweep this under the carpet and file it under "miserable old man complaints", but can we have the complete attire so we know the guy doing the sweeping is not from Marketing or some fat guy in an apron who wants you to think he's a chef!

  


Edited
8 Years Ago by TopOneTone
justaviking
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Hmm...

I looked at the introductory pictures again, and I can see where several of the hats would certainly seem to belong to a "uniform."

If you have a person hearing jeans, a baseball cap could be reasonably treated as an accessory, just like sunglasses.  But a flight attendant's hat, a pilot's cap, and chef's hat... those are not your everyday head coverings, and are certainly considered part of the uniform.  In that context, the "baseball cap" for the delivery guy/gal also looks a lot like they are part of the uniform.  A construction hard hat?  I might be more forgiving on that (though I don't know why).

Naturally I would not expect their tools to be part of an "outfit" collection.  No shovels, briefcases, spatulas, or things like that.

Bottom line:  I see your point.



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wendyluvscatz
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Not a solution but a temporary workaround
https://www.yobi3d.com/#!/search?q=Hat
Ok you need 3DXchange but there are enough hats for everyone just make some textures and attach to head save as assessories.
Be careful though as it just finds every free model out there like google, look what site is listed and pick legitimate ones but it does narrow seaching quite a lot.




Edited
8 Years Ago by wendyluvscatz
TopOneTone
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Thanks Wendy lots of interesting stuff there.
animagic
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Living in the US and knowing the FTC's actual (in)effectiveness as far as consumer rights go, the following note (in regular print) on the pack's product page would most likely satisfy them:

Note: Corporate logos and images used here are for example purposes only. Each copyright is exclusive property of its owner. Logos, accessories and hairs displayed here are not included in this pack. Please see the Content Library for actual products.


That's why food product packaging in the US often states "Serving suggestion". Maybe RL could do something similar and put the note right at the beginning.

That said, it would be nice to have the hats, but I don't feel deceived.




https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/436b0ffd-1242-44d6-a876-d631.jpg

Edited
8 Years Ago by animagic
TopOneTone
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SW00000P
That's not really the point. "Consumer beware" is not an excuse for poor marketing techniques that undermine a brand's customer relationships. If you are an ethical business, confident in the value of your products and services for your customers, you should never put yourself in a position to be relying on fine print disclaimers. That' a lawyers response not a marketer building long term relationships. 
Aside from this, the items were clearly presented as a "uniform", identifying occupation. There was a reasonable expectation that the "uniform" constitutes the offer and there was no clear indication what was not included, it was left to the customer to deduce this for themselves from the inventory list. That's a clear breach of the legislation.
The customer thinks those items should have been included in respect of what the pack was portrayed to be. They were presented in a fashion that was obviously designed to imply they were included. The customer is disappointed. The Marketer has secured a sale but failed to enhance the relationship. There may not be another sale to pay for the lawyers opinion if we operate the business on these terms.
Talking of which, my lawyer comes with a wig and gown, that's how I know he's a real lawyer and not just a man in a suit.    
primaveranz
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TopOneTone your mistake was in only having 30 years experience in the area, and neglecting to confer with Sw00000p before purchase, because he is a self-certified expert on everything (except human relations).
RobertoColombo
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Hi,

without taking one left or right position, I just wanna say what i learn to do: check everything carefully and then  decide whether I need to buy or not, seriously thinking whether I will need NOW (for my current project under development) or in 3 months or 3 years.
Reallusion packs describe what is in: just looking at the advertisement picture is not enough: go to the pack page and check carefully the content.
It is more or less like meeting a girl in a discotheque: you will never know how she really looks like the next morning (I am sure Pumeco will agree...) BigGrin Tongue Nothing bad, that's pure, "deceptive" advertising w00t

Cheers

  Roberto



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justaviking
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I am NOT going to grab my pitchfork and shout, "Take them to court!" or anything extreme like that.  But I can see why the OP is upset.

True, the page does say, "Note: Corporate logos and images used here are for example purposes only. Each copyright is exclusive property of its owner. Logos, accessories and hairs displayed here are not included in this pack. Please see the Content library for actual products."

What are "accessories"?  A paint bucket, a paintbrush, a clipboard, a hammer... yeah, pretty obvious those are accessories.
We won't get a McDonalds logo.  I understand that.
But I would think it's reasonable to assume a specialized hat is part of the uniform.  It's not like you will put a chef's hat or a pilot's hat on your avatar when he or she goes to the grocery store.

The chef's hat helps you know he's a chef, not a pharmacist.  The flight attendant's hat helps set her apart from an office worker.

If you drill down to this page: http://www.reallusion.com/ContentStore/iClone/pack/ClothBaseForCharacterCreator_ProfessionalOutfits/contentoverview.html?category=Characters
and click on the first guy, the one in the suite, you will see he has a tie.  But if you click on the chef, sure enough, his bald head is not covered.
Tie = Not an accessory, is included
Chef hat = Accessory, not included

Obviously Reallusion didn't lie, but the specialty hats should have been included as part of the uniform, in my opinion.



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Edited
8 Years Ago by justaviking
GrannyJ
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I have a n inexpensive pack with 10 professional hat accessories for use in iC5 & iC6:
http://city.reallusion.com/ContentPreview.aspx?i=JIC298672a021b6bc624&g=



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