Mattel To Modify TV Ads

Mattel has agreed to modify TV commercials for its Juice Box personal media player.

That comes after complaints from the Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Better Business Bureau that the ads did not make it clear that kids also had to buy additional equipment--Juice Ware Chips and an MP3 starter kit.

CARU requires that the familiar "some accessories sold separately," must be "clear, understandable and prominent."

Mattel's weren't, said CARU, and the toy company agreed, according to CARU, that future adds would "more clearly feature material disclosures," though Mattel also said it didn't agree that the add violated CARU guildelines.

Those guidelines are self-regulations and CARU has no authority to sanction advertisers, though in egregious cases it can refer cases to the FTC.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.