Stellantis Pulls Ads Touting American-Made Vehicles After Watchdog Complaints
Companies love to tout their American-made products, especially after President Trump and company’s recent tariff announcements. Stellantis, a company with brands that most probably assume are 100 percent American-made, recently ran into trouble with an ad campaign promoting its U.S. roots because of advertising rules stating that products wearing the “American-made” tag should “contain no – or negligibly – foreign content.”
Companies love to tout their American-made products, especially after President Trump and company’s recent tariff announcements. Stellantis, a company with brands that most probably assume are 100 percent American-made, recently ran into trouble with an ad campaign promoting its U.S. roots because of advertising rules stating that products wearing the “American-made” tag should “contain no – or negligibly – foreign content.”
The nonprofit Truth in Advertising, which monitors false and misleading claims, said Stellantis’ ads were misleading because its vehicles contain imported components. In a letter, the organization said that, “Stellantis has every right to boast of its brands’ assembly plants in the United States that create American jobs and strengthen the U.S. economy, but it cannot illegally embellish the amount of manufacturing that takes place domestically.”
Truth in Advertising’s website goes further, saying that Stellantis vehicles shown in the ads “are made with engine, motor, or transmission parts sourced from all over the world, from Mexico to Italy to the Philippines. The bottom line: The cars are not made or built in the USA but rather assembled in the USA using a significant amount of imported parts.”
Stellantis’ ad campaign started running last week, but the automaker pulled the ads to make modifications. All of this sounds dramatic, but the changes will likely be small and focus on the use of the words “build” and “built” to clarify the vehicles’ content.
[Images: Stellantis]
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