What You See Isn't Necessarily What You Get
June 16, 2006 — -- Have you ever looked at those eye-popping before-and-after photos and wondered whether there was more to those images than met the eye?
Well, good for you. Often, when there's something advertisers don't want to brag about, they tend to bury it in the fine print.
Take the infomercials for Winsor Pilates exercise DVDs. In the commercials, noncelebrity enthusiasts boast: "I lost over 100 pounds using the Winsor Pilates program."
Was it all due to the Pilates program, though? What the ad glosses over is that the "special bonus" aerobic tape and the "Win in 10 Weight Loss Plan" aren't just for fun but crucial for taking off the pounds.
Company representatives, however, told us they believed the ad is clear -- that you have to follow the entire program to lose the weight.
Over the years, "20/20" has caught other advertisers playing all kinds of sneaky games with their before-and-after pictures. Here's a sampling of some of our favorites.
In 2004, we reported on an ad for an old formula of the weight-loss pill Hydroxycut.
Marla Duncan said that she had lost 35 pounds. It was "so easy," she said in the ad. Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, however, found one very good reason why. When she took the before picture, Duncan had recently been pregnant and just given birth.
Nixon said, "We wouldn't be suing people if we didn't think that they were deceptive."
Hydroxycut told us many of its ads disclosed Duncan's recent pregnancy, and denied any misrepresentation. Hydroxycut paid $100,000 to settle the case while denying any wrongdoing.
Then there was Mike Piacentino. In 2001, he was featured in before-and-after pictures for the popular pill Xenadrine.
What consumers didn't know was that he had started out as a competitive bodybuilder. Todd Macaluso, an attorney who is fighting Xenadrine over its weight-loss claims, said Piacentino testified that the company had paid him to eat.
"They gave him a food allowance, and they said, you know, 'You've gotta fatten up. Eat like a pig. Gain as much weight as you can. Stop working out,'" Macaluso said.
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