Click here
to see the commercial shown to middle school kids. (April
27, 2005)
Obligation has just received tapes of Channel One
News for April and May. One commercial caught our attention instantly.
It shows how desperate Channel One has gotten. They can’t turn
away any company’s ad money – no matter how misleading a commercial
may be.
The Nature’s Cure commercial tells students that
there is a cure for acne. All the young person has to do is send
$27 every two months to this obscure Oakland, CA company. Nature’s
Cure is a get-rich company that doesn’t even manufacture the product
they are pushing on children. They only have 13 employees and the
founder Amy Baker has no background in the drug industry. She is
a "brand manager" who sought out any product that she
could build up into a company that could be sold for big bucks.
Nature’s Cure is her ticket to wealth.
Channel One News is notorious for their deceptive
ads aimed at children. For example, they constantly run ads with
small print that is unreadable. Last year they ran an ad for another
acne medicine called Zapzyt. Obligation found out that Zapzyt was
asked by an industry watchdog group to refrain from advertising
their very powerful drug to children under 13. We busted Channel
One for their irresponsible decision to run commercials for this
product and they reluctantly pulled the ads.
Here is a short news article about Nature’s Cure
in a trade publication last year:
"Acne treatment.
Because medications should not be advertised to children, a television
commercial for an acne treatment should not have run on children’s
programming, CARU determined. The fact that the commercial featured
teenagers, whom many younger children look up to, made this the
type of spot that, in CARU’s opinion, would be especially attractive
to children under the age of 12.
Nature’s Cure Inc.— Nature’s Cure, CARU, Advertising Law Guide"
This is from Nature’s Cure site. Personal information
collected from young people is considered an "asset" that
can be sold by Ms. Baker’s company to the highest bidder.
"Company Sale
Personal and Non-Personal Information collected through the Site is
considered a trade secret of Nature’s Cure. As the owner of such
information, we may disclose or sell such information as an asset
of the company in conjunction with the sale to a third party of
our company or a portion of our assets. "
Children are told on Channel
One News that this product is a cure for acne. They are directed
to the "buythecure.com" site. You can’t get anymore
blunt than that with a web site name. Once there, they are told
about how expensive this homeopathic drug is. The point is to
lock a young person into a two-month supply and to get approval
for rebilling the credit card they are using every 60 days for,
well, for as long as they can.
"GET A 2-MONTH SUPPLY
FOR ONLY $19.95 plus S&H!
Join the Nature’s Cure Skin Care Club:
By enrolling today, we will give you FREE Rush Shipping on the two
month-supply you just ordered — that’s a value of $6.95! — so you
can receive your order in 5-7 days instead of the normal 2-4 weeks.
Here’s how it works — every other month, we will automatically ship
you an additional 2-month supply of Nature’s Cure so you’ll never run
out. Plus, you’ll lock in the low rate of just $19.95 plus $6.95 shipping
to be billed to the same account you are using today every two months.
You will also be eligible for special offers and discounts available
only to club members. There is no obligation and you can cancel at
any time."
Wow, thanks for "locking in" the incredibly
exorbitant price of $19.95 plus shipping.
Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, "The Food and
Drug Administration considers this product a drug. If this ad was
aimed at adults it would be deceptive. Aiming it at students in
high school and middle school is just wrong. Young people, especially
many in middle school, don’t have the life experience to know when
a corporation is playing with words in order to get their money.
Nature’s Cure web site for young people is a nightmare. Once a
young person has a parent’s credit card it is very easy to over
order. It is extremely easy to sign up for a reoccurring credit
card charge every two months. I was on their site and signed up
for two months of product at $20 plus $7 shipping. Then I see that
I can enter the ‘Skin Care Club’ and receive the same two-month
supply and they will rush me my product to arrive in only five
to six days as opposed to two to four weeks the ‘non-club’ way.
So I clicked on joining the club which was at no extra charge.
When I viewed my order summary, I saw they they didn’t remove my
first order for two months which only made sense. Instead my total
charge was for $51 which represented a duplicate order. It is obvious
that no one at Channel One News checked out this product or web
site before they advertised it to its impressionable audience."
"Nature’s Cure is another reason why schools
that care about their students will stop showing Channel One News
this August and September."
