NAD Finds That Humor Doesn't Always Indicate Puffery

The American Association of Orthodontists ran a series of social media ads for Happy Mouth Now, a fictional teledentistry company, which showed consumers struggling with the company's products. The ads are funny, unless you work for a non-fictional teledentistry company, in which case you'd likely choose another adjective to describe them.

SmileDirectClub challenged the ads before the NAD arguing, among other things, that the campaign falsely implies that at-home teeth aligner products, such as the ones its sells, are ineffective and dangerous. NAD's decision covers a lot of ground, but for the purposes of this post, we're just going to focus on one of the ads in the campaign and on the thin line between what's puffery and what requires substantiation.