Re: BBC on the web

["A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@attorneyross.com>]

On 26 Jan 2002 at 11:38, Joseph Pappalardo wrote:

> 
> > I don't know about the ones on WBZ, but the ads for the Bose Wave Radio
> > on WCRB certainly sound like personal endorsements.  The announcer talks
> > about using it at home and enjoying it.
> 
> The key is that the announcer is getting paid for his "personal
> endorsement".  Just as Joan Rivers was paid to enodrse MCI at one point.

If the announcer is saying that he uses it at home, and his family all 
loves it, and that isn't true, then it's deceptive.  I'd like to think 
that they actually provide the announcer with a radio and have him make 
the endorsement if he and his family actually like the product, but I'm 
not naïve enough to believe that's so without more information than I 
have now.

Radio Shack did exactly that some years ago.   They approached Isaac 
Asimov, who was then still writing on a typewriter.  They offered him a 
free TRS-180 computer, asking that he try it out, and if he liked it, he 
would agree to endorse it in ads.  According to his autobiography, he was 
skeptical, but found that he did like it.  I remember seeing the 
endorsement ads, which included his picture.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 15 Court Square, Suite 210                 lawyer@attorneyross.com
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