CapRate Events Violates National Advertising Division Procedures
The Procedures specifically state that “[b]y participating in an NAD or NARB proceeding, the parties agree…not to mischaracterize any decision issued or use and/or disseminate such decision for advertising and/or promotional purposes.”
In direct violation of this agreement, CapRate disseminated NAD’s case decision announcement concerning advertising for FMI to industry professionals in the commercial real estate arena, including to FMI’s clients, asserting that “NAD did in fact find that France misrepresented itself and its services.”
To the contrary, in the FMI case, NAD rejected virtually all of CapRate’s allegations regarding FMI’s advertising, finding that FMI properly substantiated its claims for its commercial real estate publishing platform that:
- FMI’s readership is “more than 322,000 industry professionals”; and
- FMI “offers more exposure and visibility for your company’s name/logo than any other conference series in commercial real estate.”
Further, NAD recommended that FMI merely modify its claims that it is the “largest commercial real estate publisher in the United States” to more accurately reflect that it is the “largest commercial real estate publisher of print and digital magazines”—a recommendation that FMI accepted and agreed to follow, noting that it “shares NAD’s interest in ensuring that business professionals understand the measures by which France Media is accurately described as the ‘largest’ commercial real estate publisher.”
When an advertiser agrees to voluntarily modify its advertising in cooperation with self-regulatory efforts, the advertiser has participated in good faith and its agreement to modify is in no way to be construed as a finding of impropriety by NAD.
The integrity and success of the self-regulatory forum hinges on the voluntary agreement of participants in an NAD proceeding to abide by the rules set forth in the BBB National Programs’ Procedures. As a voluntary process, fair dealing on the part of the parties is essential and requires adherence to both the letter and the spirit of the process. CapRate’s violation of its agreement under the Procedures and its misuse of NAD’s decision for promotional purposes undermines NAD’s mission to promote truth and accuracy of advertising claims and foster consumer trust in the marketplace.