In the United States, the law and competition require each advertising agency to avoid lying. The agency is allowed to trim away parts of the truth about the product, but they must avoid outright lies. Abandoning the truth completely is not practical. The Advertising Educational Foundation states that an advertising agency has to prove claims to their own counsel, network counsel, regulating bodies such as the Federal Trade Commission and five other government agencies. Lying is simply too costly. However, nothing prevents an ad agency from saying that a housing development has an ocean view and leaving out the fact that the homeowner has to lean out of the attic window to see it.
Advertising agencies can manipulate public perception by tying an industry to a charity which has nothing to do with the industry. Speaking about the effort of ad agencies to tie tobacco companies to charities, Kathryn Kahler Vose, vice president of communications and marketing for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids was quoted in the Baltimore Sun as saying, "They are trying to make the American public believe they are a reformed industry. In fact, they are a group of corporations that produces a product that when used as directed, kills. They're trying to divert attention." According to Advertising and Marketing Review, the State of Florida labeled several local ad agencies as "Tobacco Industry Supporters" in their anti-teen smoking website.
The public doesn't believe everything it hears or sees. The website, Health Care Renewal, reports that a poll done by the Washington Post showed that 40 percent of the American public had no trust in advertising done by pharmaceutical companies. The Nielsen Ratings company report that approximately 38 percent of viewers distrust television, newspaper and magazine ads. This has the effect of making advertising less effective, but also lessening the moral culpability of agencies that don't adhere to the truth. Agencies can argue that they can't be held accountable if the public doesn't believe its lies.
Prescription medicines are excluded from advertising in virtually every nation, but the United States. The patient should listen to his doctor and no one else when it comes to the choice of a prescription medicine. There is no one else who has more knowledge than the doctor sitting with the patient in a little room. The doctor should make the decision based solely on the medical condition of the patient. Yet the average American viewer sees endless ads about prescription medicine. The ads must work, or they wouldn't be on the air. Ad companies are influencing patients to get doctors to prescribe certain drugs whether the drugs are the right ones for the patient or not.