Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2011 as news about the FTC case against Reebok over its EasyTone and RunTone toning shoes.
The US Federal Trade Commission has investigated Reebok‘s advertising campaign for athletic shoes sold under the Reebok EasyTone and RunTone brands, which claimed to firm and tone the buttocks. Reebok was asked to provide evidence backing up the benefits it promised to consumers who bought the product.
After investigating the product and reviewing the evidence the company submitted, regulators found no benefit that set these shoes apart from any other brand of athletic shoe. As a result, Reebok will have to pay $25 million for using misleading advertising, and it is barred from making such claims in future campaigns.
With this ruling, Reebok won’t just lose the money from the fine. It will also likely be forced to lower the product’s price, since consumers were paying more for a specific benefit they supposedly couldn’t get from other shoes. On top of that, it will probably see sales of this type of footwear drop once the news gets out.
In the end, after all the money poured into heavy marketing campaigns, it turns out the wonderful EasyTone shoes are just… athletic shoes like any other.
Featured image: Buntyou, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
