Articles tagged with "advertisement"

Every second Thursday in Wellington a group of eager skeptics meet in a local pub and work on Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) complaints and other skeptical activism topics.

Mark Hanna reports on how to use the Advertising Standards Authority to fight back against the promotion of questionable therapies.

The Advertising Standards Authority provides an accessible platform for members of the public to take on the merchants of woo. This article is based on a presentation to the 2012 NZ Skeptics Conference.

On 14 June 2005 the Advertising Standards Complaints Board met to consider Complaint 05/116, filed by Martin Craig for the Consumers' Institute, concerning the Maria Duval psychic services advertisements. This is an abridged version of their deliberations.

I sent a copy of the advertisement to the Minister, asking him to confirm my impression that claiming to cure cancer is illegal, and also to protest vigorously if his limited funds were being used to "investigate dubious therapies". Almost before the Minister's secretarial staff had time to send me a formal acknowledgement, I had a letter from the Advertising Standards Complaints Board; the Ministry's routine policy is to refer all such letters as mine to this board.

When I received through the mail a coloured brochure from Time/Life advertising a series of videos and cassettes titled "Growing Younger", I was surprised to see that I could learn from Time/Life via their series how to develop an "ageless body". In addition I could learn to "help reverse ageing" and that the series could "open the door to a life free from the effects of aging" (sic).

Thanks again to members who have sent me material. I now have so much, that for the first time, I shall have to hold some over until the next issue. Thanks to H. Ruis of Tokoroa who kindly sent me the reply from Irene F. Hughes. It now appears that the psychic never visited N.Z. at all and her facilities are only available from her Chicago office and not from Auckland. She was not willing to send out copies of her citations for crime busting.

Astrological betting systems which claim to win on Lotto are bunkum, according to a group which investigates the unexplained.

The N.Z. Federation of Spiritual Healers (Inc)