The time I nearly got sued by a celebrity TV chef…

“They want £1,000 by the end of the day. Or they’ll SUE.”

That’s what my client yelled at me on the most uncomfortable phone call of my career.

A call that gave me an expensive lesson on COMPLIANCE.

And a call that took place over 10 years ago… 

…back when I’ve just got started in copywriting, and thought I could rewrite the rulebook. 

An attitude that quickly cost me.

As I’m prone to do, I’d developed a technique for jazzing up press releases by hunting for hot news stories I could crowbar into the lead.

I guess you could call it ‘newsjacking’ (Seth Godin, you’re welcome).

But my ‘newsjacking’ backfired spectacularly when I used a story on ALLEGED food poisoning at a Michelin starred restaurant to promote kitchen shelving (it turned out to be a shellfish virus, who’d have thunk it).

This was my first and ONLY dalliance with lawyers (touch wood).

People I quickly discovered have a ruthless knack for flipping your words to mean something else entirely.

The good news is I only had to pay £1,000 to get the case closed.

The even BETTER news is it gave me the fright I needed to tighten up my legal game.

Ever since, I’ve pushed back on dodgy claims that offer a springboard into hot legal water.

Whether it’s inventing testimonials… 

blatantly attacking competitors… 

quoting celebrities without their consent… 

or making ingredient claims based on weak science… 

…ANYTHING on legal shaky ground always triggers memories of THAT phone call, and how terrified I felt inside.  

Sure, some clients think I’m a party pooper, and should just chill the heck out.

But I know they’d be MUCH LESS impressed if I agreed to making outrageous claims and the Alphabet agencies came knocking.

Well, this is exactly what’s happened to the biggest publisher in our industry.

A publisher you’d think would have the most stringent compliance lawyers in the land.

But it seems a few memos got lost, because they’re now getting hammered by the FTC for some pretty extreme claims:

• A simple and scientifically proven protocol that can permanently cure type 2 diabetes in 28 days, without any changes in diet or exercise and with a  “100 percent success rate.”
• An hour-long video presentation that claims the “hidden cause” of type 2 diabetes is Non-Ionizing Radiation (NIR) exposure from everyday electronic devices like computers, televisions, and cell phones.

I can imagine their offices are in meltdown right now.

They must be losing their minds thinking about all the risque claims they’ve made over the years, which the folks at the FTC are no doubt printing off and compiling into a drawstring file.

Sadly, this isn’t an isolated incident. 

Lots of supplements and natural health publishers have got slapped HARD for pushing their luck. 

But a lot of the time it’s down to lack of awareness, and thinking cause it’s advertising they can always play the ‘puffery’ card.

They can’t.

So to help my natural health clients get to grips with what’s allowed, and brush up my knowledge at the same time, I created my FTC Supplement Guidelines – Turn a Minefield into a Trust Tree.

It outlines what you can and can’t say in an easier to understand way than the legalese jargon you’ve got to wade through on the FTC’s website. 

Even better, it outlines how compliance can be turned into a marketing advantage when you use it to build rapport and trust.

So if you’re writing offers in natural health for clients, check it out. 

It may save them and YOU a ton of money.

Even better, it will avoid a phone call you NEVER want to pick up.

The post The time I nearly got sued by a celebrity TV chef… appeared first on The Copywriter's Crucible.

from The Copywriter's Crucible https://ift.tt/2K0nvqF
via IFTTT