EDITOR: For the past several weeks I have noted with disdain the
full page ad entitled
“Pregnancy
&
amp; Perchlorate
” purchased by Richard Alexander of the legal firm Alexander,
Hawes
&
amp; Audet LLP. I find this full-page ad extremely offensive for
several reasons.
EDITOR:
For the past several weeks I have noted with disdain the full page ad entitled “Pregnancy & Perchlorate” purchased by Richard Alexander of the legal firm Alexander, Hawes & Audet LLP. I find this full-page ad extremely offensive for several reasons.
First, this ad is clearly intended by its creator to herd residents of the areas affected by the perchlorate plumes to Mr. Alexander’s firm so that they don’t “forever give up your claims” and don’t “Make Olin more profitable and its shareholders happy”.
Second, the ad has a very predictable sequence that starts with “Pregnancy”, moves to “perchlorate poisoning”, continues to “devaluing your property and making it impossible to refinance”, then “no recovery, you owe nothing: no fees and no costs” and, finally, “Call to become a client …”
How quickly we move from “Pregnancy” to “become a client”. We commonly call this type of sequence a “sales funnel”. As for the “no recovery, you owe nothing” statement in the ad, Olin has admitted responsibility for the perchlorate contamination and is therefore undoubtedly prepared to make reasonable financial restitution to those affected. As a result, there almost certainly will be a recovery, which will quite certainly be immediately followed by bills from Mr. Alexander’s firm for legal expenses and fees.
Third, Mr. Alexander’s ad is very selective about the portions of the Environmental Working Group website that was used as his reference. He possibly could have included other information provided on this same website. For example: “California’s current provisional drinking water standard, which is only advisory, is 2 to 6 parts per billion.”
Mr. Alexander’s ad does not point out that there is currently no federal or state regulation defining a maximum enforceable content for perchlorate.
Lastly, I believe that your newspaper must take the responsibility to assure that the ads for which it receives payment are forthright and do not insult the intelligence of your subscribers. This ad clearly fails on both of these counts.
Bill Masuda,
Morgan Hill
