For the first time in more than 20 years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opened a case against an automaker on grounds that Nissan’s North American unit and its advertising agency TBWA used special-effects trickery to exaggerate the performance of the Frontier pickup truck.

The Nissan commercial targeted by the FTC, titled “Hill Climb”, shows a Frontier pickup speeding up the side of a steep sand dune to push a stuck buggy to the top. According to the FTC, the television spot made the incline looks significantly steeper than it was, and both the truck and the buggy were dragged to the top of the hill by hidden cables.

“Special effects in ads can be entertaining, but advertisers can’t use them to misrepresent what a product can do,” said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection. “This ad made the Nissan Frontier appear capable of doing something it can’t do,” she added.

The FTC said that under the proposed settlements, “Nissan and TBWA cannot misrepresent any material quality or feature of a pickup truck through the depiction of a test, experiment, or demonstration.” However, special effects and other production techniques are permitted “as long as they do not misrepresent a material quality or feature of the pickup truck.”

Nissan and TBWA weren’t fined, but they agreed not to use misleading demonstrations of pickup-truck prowess in the future.

Scroll down to take a look at the commercial and tell us your opinion in the commentary section.

By Dan Mihalascu

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