FTC, 7 States Ding Google and iHeart for Pixel 4 Phony Endorsement Ads

[Mark Jeffries]

The dominant radio group aired 29,000 ads where their personalities endorsed Google's new smartphone--unfortunately for them, none of those jocks ever got the phone--Google and IHR are paying $9.4M in penalties:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-ftc-sues-google-iheartmedia-alleged-deceptive-ads-promoting-pixel-4-2022-11-28/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The link above doesn't say if any of IHR's national personalities (like Seacrest, Bobby Bones, Delilah, Hannity, Beck) were involved with these phony ads.

[Bob Jersey]

Most or all of those (maybe not Hannity) deal with IHeart/Premiere through their own companies (as do Steve Harvey and Dan Patrick), and sell at least part of their adverts separately... I'm sure Patrick doesn't deal with G, tho his Peacock simulcast appears to beat a G/Samsung Galaxy Z flip-phone campaign to death...*

B

*That may be a personalized setup, but I'm guessing...

Mark Jeffries, in part, Nov 29th: