LG Electronics has come under fire once again from the National Advertising Division of the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council for making claims in promotional materials that its OLED televisions achieve “perfect black” and have “infinite contrast.”
The NAD said it has referred the advertising issue made by LG Electronics USA, to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for further review. This follows “LG’s decision against complying with NAD recommendations regarding the ‘perfect black’ and ‘infinite contrast’ claims,” the NAD said.
An LG Electronics spokesman told us: “These advertising claims are accurate, and our additional evidence is very strong. LG will continue to make truthful claims in the marketplace.”
NAD is an investigative unit of the advertising industry’s system of self-regulation. It is administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
The NAD said LG initially appealed its adverse findings to the National Advertising Review Board (NARB). The company later withdrew its appeal and petitioned NAD to reopen the case based on new evidence. The NAD said that “the request followed recent revisions to procedures that govern advertising industry self-regulation.”
LG said it had come up with new evidence that was not available at the time of the original claims were made supporting the perfect black and infinite contrast boasts.
The NAD said it denied the motion to reopen the challenge after reviewing the new evidence.
LG said it “will not comply with recommendations regarding ‘perfect black’ and ‘infinite contrast’ claims … LG appreciates NAD’s review of claims for the LG Super UHD and LG OLED televisions but disagrees with the decision and recommendation that ‘perfect black’ and ‘infinite contrast’ claims be discontinued.”
The policies and procedures governing self-regulation provide that when an advertiser asserts that it will not comply with NAD’s recommendations, NAD “shall prepare a review of the facts with relevant exhibits and forward them to the appropriate federal or state law enforcement agency.”
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Consequently, the advertising claims at issue have been forwarded to the FTC for further review, the NAD said in a statement.
This is not the first time that LG has come under the scrutiny of the NAD for allegedly making false or misleading advertising claims.
Earlier this year the NAD recommended LG discontinue its “ultimate” picture quality claim and false disparagement claims following a challenge by rival Samsung.
NAD called into question LG’s attack campaign called “Question The Q” targeting Samsung’s use of the term “QLED” to refer to its quantum dot LED LCD TVs as an attempt to create confusion with LG’s OLED TVs.
By Greg Tarr
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