"Results Not Typical"

This week's blog is about the re-reading of Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium is the Massage (sic) Message," which I just did. It was quite a reading experience 35 years ago, and it is now. This time it made me think of how far we have come — or not.  When I compare it to a newer work — such as Seth Godin's book, "Tribes" and how we tend to think about communication and  marketing; it is still an incredible read.   Godin's book is basically about how we look at advertising, and how it is changing. And that's what McLuhan's was about concerning communication and media. Essentially, they were similar arguments,  just different "time zones."

As I was reading this I listened to an old NPR "On-point" radio show podcast (Tom Ashbrook),  and the subject was about the FTC's new rules and regulations about bloggers accepting "booty" or "loot" for advertising  products or services within their blogs. I know I don't have to worry about that (just yet) but check out the FTC regulations about what you can and can't do.

The following seemed to be a seminal statement from the new regulations:

"Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as “results not typical” – the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor."

Huh? Does that mean what I think that it does?  What is up with the world and the notion of honesty?  Being honest?  Being loyal?  Being trust worthy?

Well, folks, I think I am putting on my resume: when it comes to my work, I am usually fantastic, but "results may not be typical."