South Africa, July 7 -- These types of complaints spanned fast-moving consumer goods, banking, telecoms, healthcare, travel, quick service restaurants, as well as energy and utilities.

Misleading claims are not limited to outright falsehoods but may also come about because of omission, ambiguity, inaccuracy, exaggeration or the overall impression created by an advertisement.

This is an aspect of the code that is a thread throughout complaints lodged against advertisers, mostly by consumers with a ratio of five to one based on an analysis of a sample of the ARB's rulings.

The Board has repeatedly made it clear that it won't tolerate marketing that claims to have specific attributes and cannot substantiate these, misleading the consumer ...