In 2004, an Australian gameshow host, Ian Turpie, appeared in numerous advertisements under the headline … ‘TV Star’s Amazing Confession!‘
In the ads, Turpie [with his wife Jan by his side] explained “Impotence nearly ruined my life” and that Advanced Medical Institute’s ‘Nasal Delivery System‘ helped him “get my sex drive back!”
Maybe it was the claim of a ‘Nasal Delivery System’ helping reverse impotence or maybe it was the desire to never see Turpie on TV again … but Australia’s Trade Practices Department took AMI to court for false advertising, and SHOCK, HORROR, they won.
Apparently the Federal Court was told Turpie never used AMI’s spray to treat impotence or erectile dysfunction and the interview, as described in the ad, never actually took place.
To totally rub salt in AMI’s wounds, the prosecution explained …
“While Mr Turpie no longer had the sexual desire he had when he was a young man, he was still able to achieve an erection when he desired, and so did not suffer from impotence or erectile dysfunction”.
After consideration, Justice Kevin Lindgren [who somehow managed to not smile through the whole proceedings] found AMI had engaged in deceptive or misleading conduct by publishing the advertisement and that publicist Philip Somerset was a party to it.
Now ignoring the fact that using a sad, washed up gameshow host is never going to be a really great idea to sell erectile dysfunction medication [abit like Viagra’s use of Pele] …who really is at fault here?
Sure, Turpie is a tosser for willingly taking money to lie and yeah, AMI are absolute blithering idiots to think this concept will work … but how come the ad industry doesn’t take more of a battering on this matter?
OK, maybe an ad agency wasn’t used at all [maybe it was just Turpie’s publicist] but if one was, they should be hung, drawn and quartered … because what they’ve done is reassert in the consumers minds, that ads are lies and shouldn’t be taken notice of.
On the positive, Turpie can relax knowing the Neanderthal Aussie Man will no longer regard him as a ‘poof’ because they thought he needed help to ‘get it up’ … even though he is a money-grabbing, morally corrupt Tom Selleck lookalike!