What is misleading or deceptive conduct in advertising?

Misleading or deceptive conduct is one of the most broadly applicable concepts in advertising law. In Australia, the Australian Consumer Law prohibits conduct in trade or commerce that is misleading or deceptive, or that is likely to mislead or deceive. It applies across sectors, which means almost any brand's marketing has to consider it, not only those in heavily regulated industries.

What makes the concept demanding is that intention is not the test. A claim can be misleading because of the overall impression it creates, even if every individual word is literally true, and even if no one set out to mislead. Fine print that contradicts a headline, an omission that changes the meaning, or a comparison that is not like-for-like can all create a false impression.

For a marketing team, the practical defence is a careful review of the claims in a piece before it goes out, with a record that the review happened. Because the risk lives in the impression rather than a single word, the review benefits from a second, independent set of eyes that reads the work the way a customer would.

Cohiva Campaign supports that review as a control. The go-live is rejected at the API until the team's checklist passes, multi-stage approvals keep the author separate from the approver so the review is independent, the proofing canvas lets a reviewer pin a comment on the exact claim in question, and every decision is recorded in an append-only audit. It helps you operate and document the review; it does not assess whether a particular claim is misleading, and it does not provide legal advice.

Whether a specific advertisement is misleading or deceptive is ultimately a legal question that turns on the facts and the audience. A marketing tool cannot answer it. What it can do is make sure a claim is reviewed by someone other than its author before it is published, capture that the review took place, and keep the annotated proof and the approval together, so that if a claim is later questioned the team can show how it was checked rather than reconstruct it from memory.

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