A History of the Media Industry's Self-Regulation of Comparative Advertising

Abstract

The unique problems for the media industry posed by the increasingly widespread use of comparative advertising throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first have not been examined prior to the research in this article. Sources consisted of articles published in the advertising trade literature, including, for the early twentieth century, the industry's foremost journal, Printers’ Ink. Findings reveal comparative advertising was rarely viewed as anything other than a serious problem for publishers and broadcasters and also show that disparagement and the validity of comparative claims have been the principal problems driving media advertising self-regulation policies. The article concludes with recommendations for future historical research on the challenges that comparative advertising has created for other entities and institutions involved in the regulation of advertising.