March 1, 2006

I seem to be writing these the day after.  Right now, the lessons are so dynamic that I don't always teach the same thing in every class.  Issues come up in one that I did not foresee, and I change the lesson.

Today, March 1, we studied the law.  I printed out some pages from a Federal Trade Commission FAQ for business owners about advertising (http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/ad-faqs.htm).  What jumped out at us most was there seemed to be plenty of ads on TV they could think of that don't do what the law says!  Here is a line from the FTC, "For example, if an ad for a diet product claims 'Lose 10 pounds in one week without dieting,' the fine-print statement 'Diet and exercise required' is insufficient to remedy the deceptive claim in the ad." I am pretty sure I have seen ads like this!

We then watched ads from Ford (http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/f150/commercials/?id=4).  I showed the the ad where the two bulldozers crush the truck.  We dicussed whether the ad fit the requirements of the law.  I still think it is pretty tricky of Ford to digitally modify the undercarriage of the truck while it was getting crushed.

Homework:
Thursday is No-Logo Day.  Students are to wear as few logos as possible.  Those are actually ads for the clothing company.

They were also supposed to make three ads for the bowling pin.