From the Hill

Tom Delaney
PLANET Director of Government Affairs

Industry compliance with legal and ethical advertising

It’s important to differentiate yourself from your competitors, but there are limits and also federal rules involved in how you do so. For instance, you would not be in compliance if you use information that has not been peer reviewed or scientifically proven to promote one service or product over another. Comparing “natural” or “organic” fertilizers and pest control products over traditional products, or saying the products are safe are some of the areas where many legal and ethical violations in lawn care advertising occur. It has been some time since the industry has been under the microscope for its advertising practices, and, to keep it that way, it’s again time to take a look at the basic guidelines.

Familiarizing (or re-familiarizing) yourself with the Advertising Guidelines for Lawn Care Products and Services, developed by PLANET in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) several years ago, would be a great place to begin to determine whether or not your advertising is in compliance. This document can be found online at LandcareNetwork.org under the Government Affairs tab. Select Industry Tools, then Lawn and Landscape Issues Communication Toolkit, and then Lawn and Landscape Communication Toolkit Resources from the shaded Toolkit Quick Links box. While these are not laws, they do provide peer-reviewed guidelines to good practices. One example the FTC has used in this area has to do with unfairly comparing like services.

These guidelines apply to all communications with the general public and include, but are not limited to, written and verbal communications using any medium, advertising or public relations efforts, and sales and solicitation contacts. Also included is any literature that is distributed with or without the company’s name. The key point to stress, and that many seem to miss, is how far your sales people can go with the claims they make in their sales pitches.

So, what can you say? In anticipation of this question, we also created the “What You Should Know About Lawn Care Products and Services” brochure. Reference is made to this brochure throughout the advertising guidelines because it contains great information you can share with your clients. For example, it details the difference between “organic” and “natural” with regards to lawn care products.

The ftc.gov website is another great resource for brushing up on what it considers “fair advertising.” The agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Business Center has a pretty extensive list of FAQs (Advertising FAQs: A Guide for Small Business found at business.ftc.gov) that are also very helpful. If you think the FTC will never find you or come to your location, consider that your state’s attorney general is the enforcer under the state or “little” FTC act.

Competition is good for the industry and the consumer. Let’s just do it in a legal, fair, and ethical manner that helps the entire industry. Let’s all compete on the merits of the offerings of our companies and not on false or misleading statements about competitors and their services.