An Ad Ain't True Unless You Can Back It Up

I read an interesting article about a lawsuit involving H&R Block and Intuit (makers of TurboTax).

Long story short, TurboTax ads claimed that more people prepared their taxes with TurboTax than at all H&R Block stores combined.

Only one problem…

…26 million returns were filed at H&R Block stores compared to 21 million TurboTax returns.

Whoops…I guess the fact checker needs a new job today.

The moral of this story should be to be honest in your advertising. But I’ll take it one step further: Make sure your ads tell the absolute honest truth and that you can BACK UP your statements.

Intuit is changing the ads, in my opinion, not because they think their figures are wrong but because they can't back it up.

In one of my favorite movies, A Few Good Men, Tom Cruise tells Demi Moore (and I paraphrase,

“It doesn’t matter what’s true or not. What matters is what I can prove.”

And the same goes in advertising. If you’re going to make a claim, make sure not only that it’s true but that you can also back it up.

To Your Success,

Carlon Haas
www.carlonhaas.com

P.S. If you've never seen A Few Good Men, shame on you. It's a classic. Get it dirt cheap at Amazon.