Water and misleading advertising and marketing: Where are the FDA and FTC? San Francisco Chronicle (blog)
It should be hard to sell private water. After all, most of the people reading this blog have access, a few feet away, to unlimited, remarkably cheap, high-quality tap water from systems owned by the public. So in order to sell water and water-related products, advertisers and marketers have to pull out all the tricks in the book. In particular, they can't sell "water" -- they have to sell youth, health, beauty, romance, status, image, and, of course, the old standbys, sex and fear.
For bottled water, all of these tricks are being employed, despite federal laws that require manufacturers to use honest labels about contents and restrict advertisers from making unsubstantiated health or medical claims. As early as 1906, the United States passed the Pure Food and Drug Act that required that claims about products could not contain any "statement, design, or device" that was "false or misleading in any particular."
But bottled water companies today are advertising all sorts of bottled waters and water-treatment devices as miracle cures for all sorts of ills. Consumers can find water "ionizers," vibrationally charged interactive water, energy enhanced water infused with luck or love, weight-loss waters, super-oxygenated water machines, magnetized water, rhythm-structured water, and on and on. Many of these are described in detail in my new book " Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water. " They are just some of the magical bottled waters and devices pushed on ignorant consumers or people with real health concerns who don't know where else to turn for help. Pseudoscientific claims for bottled waters can be found in brochures, health stores, and magazines, and especially on the Internet. As use of the Internet has exploded, we are seeing a proliferation of websites that make explicit, unsubstantiated, outlandish, and often blatantly fraudulent claims about the health benefits of bottled waters. And we're sucking it up by the gallon.
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