Latest Television

Can companies bash other brands in TV commercials?

I've noticed that some commercials on TV seem to deliberately avoid mentioning the brand name of their competitors when making comparisons between products. Other commercials outright bash their competitors with no holds barred. Case in point: Mac vs PC commercials. Does anyone know the laws that restrict/permit mentioning your competitors?

Public Comments

1. Nope. Only in political ads can people bash eachother by name.
2. When singling out a certain brand, they are careful how far they go. "Puffery" is a common, and legal, tactic used to advertise.
3. There is a law that states you may not negatively mention any other product on the media WITHOUT their permission. So you can do it. Let's pretend I sell Fanta. I ask Coke if I may please say bad stuff about them on Tv, and they must just sign a form. Coke would never agree, unless they wanted failure. Plus it is just bad sportsmanship to do something like that.....They sometimes compare, but they don't mention.
4. "PC" is not a brand. Mac is. They can use other brands if what they say about them is true. This is why a lot of commercials don't tell you what the other brand they are comparing themselves to are, but they give you very strong clues so you can figure it out.
5. Logically, if you bash another company by name, then you should use verifiable statics. I.E.; We are phone company A, our competitors, phone company B, charges more. Rates are published, so this statement would be verifiable. We are phone company A, our competitors, Phone company B, have rats in their offices. That would be hard to prove with the use of public records. May or may not be true. We are phone company A, our competitors, phone company B, really suck. Matter of opinion. Not provable. In all cases, you, the consumer, must make the final decision.
6. In the past they would make an effort to cover up the other company's logo and say things like "the leading brand". Now it seems like they can bash each other without legal consequences.