legality of statements

[joe028]

Here is an example to ask my question. Let's say I own a website that sells classified ad listings. If you want a premium ad (better placement, more words, etc.) you have to pay $9.99/month, whereas a plain old classified ad is let's say $4.99. I want to promote the premium ad to the customer so I make a statement on my site that says something like this: "Get 5 times more exposure with a Premium Ad."

First of all, if I have never offered premium ads before, how can I make a statement like this (even though I would like to, in order to help sales)? Is there any metric to back up a statement like this? Is there any legal obligation to back up a statement like that with data?

Anyone have any experience with something like this. We see all the time the exaggerated claims, but I don't want to get into a sticky situation. And trust me I do NOT want to mislead a potential customer, but I would like to promote a better sale with something.

Thanks for any insight.

Joe

[musicmann]

Joe,
Is there a way you can justify your claim objectively? For example, if the premium ad is "stick" and appears at the top of each page and you have a total of 5 pages, you could easily justify that the premium gets 5x exposure simply because it appears on 5x the number of pages.

Alternatively, find a site that is making these types of exposure claims (for ads similar to the ones that you're considering). Contact their ad sales and ask them how they justify their claims. They may have some objective research that you could use to justify your claims.