Viewpoint - Visual Puffery in Advertising

Abstract

This Viewpoint piece discusses “puffery”, what the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defines as a ‘term frequently used to denote the exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a seller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precisely determined'’. The authors discuss their own use of semiotic analysis to investigate the existence of visual puffery in magazine advertising of women's fragrances.