Color Us Majorly Surprised – Company Gets The FTC To Change Its Press Release – Advertising, Marketing & Branding

A few weeks ago, we wrote about an interesting development in
what had been a fairly standard Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Made
in the USA (MUSA) settlement. In short, the company had some major
beef with the FTC’s press release about its case. The company
and its owner filed a motion to get out of its settlement and to
make the FTC change its press release, which, among other things,
accused the company of “lying.”

The FTC has a long history of standing by its press releases
when challenged and certainly does not have a tendency to change
the content of its releases. But lo and behold, something happened
here and rather quickly.

FTC press release at issue had been quietly
changed – the word “lying” had disappeared from the
press release. The headline previously read “FTC Sues Marketer
of Personal Protective Equipment and Light Fixtures for
Lying About Products Being Made in the USA and
Government-Certified.” It has been toned down, now reading
“FTC Sues Marketer of Personal Protective Equipment and Light
Fixtures for Advertising Claims About Products
Being Made in the USA and Government-Certified.”

But that was not the only change. The company was also quite
unhappy that the FTC press release didn’t mention that it had
neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the complaint, and
now in the first paragraph of the press release, we have this
prominent statement: “The claims resolved by the settlement
are allegations only, and there has been no determination of
liability. Defendants neither admit nor deny any of the allegations
in the Complaint, except as specifically stated in the
Order.”

A recent entry in the federal court docket indicated that the
parties had resolved their issues and that the FTC had agreed to
revise the press release. So, we have many thoughts about this.
First, kudos to the FTC for agreeing to the changes in order to get
this matter settled and not having to spend more resources
unnecessarily litigating this case. Although the agency denied that
there was anything wrong with its press release, sometimes it is OK
to give a little. Second, for our readers, don’t read too much
into this story. There is a lot we don’t know about what
transpired, but do not make any sort of assumption that the FTC
will negotiate press release language with companies going forward.
There is a long history of the agency not doing that, and we
don’t see this matter changing that practice. And also
don’t assume that the “neither admit nor deny”
language will appear in future press releases. Third, we are not
holding our collective breath, but maybe this incident will remind
the agency heads who review press releases that words do matter and
toning things down just a bit can get the same message across
without creating unnecessary collateral issues and requiring the
expenditure of lots of resources. We did notice an Aug. 30 press release of another MUSA case
that avoided the word “lying.” It can be done.

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