AMS survey shows lack of deception in office product advertising

In this class action matter, Applied Marketing Science, Inc. (AMS) provided survey support to help assess the potential impact of allegedly deceptive advertising in the business machines industry. The goal was to determine whether consumers were misled by the client’s claims that its printers, fax machines and other office equipment have a particular type of paper cassette and operate at a certain page-per-minute speed. The study showed that consumers did not consider the method of paper storage an important feature when making purchases; factors such as fax speed, memory, machine brand, and color printing capability were deemed far more important. Furthermore, the study found that consumers use pages per minute as a relative measure of print speed, and understand that print speed varies widely depending on the type of document printed. Following completion of the survey, the case settled favorably for the client.