"Power Balance" Wristbands: Rubber Bands with a Big Marketing Budget

by Anne Landman — January 13, 2011 - 2:35pm
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PowerBalance WristbandsPower Balance of Orange County, California makes rubber bracelets with a holographic inset that "are designed to work with your body's natural energy field" to increase strength, balance and flexibility. The bands sell on Amazon.com for anywhere from $4.25 to $30.00. The company has poured tens of millions of dollars into a marketing campaign that features sports heroes and athletes like Shaquille O'Neil promoting the product. But on December 22, 2010, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ruled that claims that the bracelets improve strength, balance and flexibility "were not supported by any credible scientific evidence," and made Power Balance admit that it engaged in "misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of 2.52 of the Trade Practices Act of 1974." The Commission told Power Balance to stop making bogus claims about the product, refund the purchase price of the wrist band to people who feel they were misled, publish a corrective advertisement to keep consumers from being misled in the future and remove the words "performance technology" from the brand. The Australian ruling isn't valid in other countries, however.

Main Source: 
BizCommunity.com, January 11, 2011

Comments

Lawsuit Anyone?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on February 16, 2011 - 11:10pm.

"Then there should be no problem NOT making bogus health claims to sell the product."

Like I already said, take a good look around the internet, and go try locking everyone up selling a fortune cookie.

"Well...in the sense that "Everybody does it, why don't you go pick on someone else?" is a p***-poor defense...hey, you're right! :-)"

That's not what my argument is at all. Try reading. Try thinking, for that matter.

Anyways, at this point, I think YOU'RE a scammer. You're trying to divert the discussion from -- something else I ALREADY said - the point about one of these geniuses who plotted out a deep pocket lawsuit, went out and bought a 4.95 bracelet, and started a very frivolous suit.

I think you're one of those "genuises" at this point. So you know what? Go take a hike. Arguing with you is pointless. You don't even make a semblance of trying to respond to what someone is actually saying.

I'm sure you will lose your bogus scamming lawsuit. Every judge in the country will laugh you out of the courtroom.

Postscript

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on February 14, 2011 - 11:57pm.

In addition to what I just posted -

try Ouija Board - over 900,000 hits. Talk to the dead anyone? How much money in that market?

I take back what I said about digging up millions. How about billions?

Try Googling On This - Or Try The Real World Shall We Say ..

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on February 14, 2011 - 11:55pm.

"It's not wearing either a crucifix or an "energy balancing" bracelet; it's SELLING either one with an unsubstantiated claim of a particular physical benefit."

Oh puleez. Go google "restore energy balance" and you come up with 350,000 internet products, including mats, books, powders, make-up, necklaces, rings, shirts, underwear - give me a break.

Try "crucifix healing" and it's 440,000 results including stones, oils, crosses, clay, pilgrimage sites that cost a heck of a lot of money to travel to so people can park their brains and seek treatment for cancer there instead on in a hospital.

I could dig up millions more for you.

"Then why don't you yourself do something along those lines instead of working so hard to defend this scam? And don't bother telling me you have; you've already gotten off to too good a start on the wrong foot."

This is just a stupid comment. I'm not defending scamming; I just don't think that the law should be thrown at everyone selling a fortune cookie, and in the case of your argument, because they made a lot of money at it. That isn't a logical argument - it's just dumb.

Powerbalance Bands.

Submitted by Twinarp (not verified) on January 13, 2011 - 7:24pm.

The Question "Why ONLY Australia?" springs to mind.
You are being fooled by science-y sounding rubbish and I quote:

"Power Balance is based on the idea of optimizing the body’s natural energy flow, similar to concepts behind many Eastern philosophies. The hologram in Power Balance is designed to resonate with and respond to the natural energy field of the body"

Let's have a quick look at this science-y sounding rubbish.

"based on the idea of optimizing the body’s natural energy flow": What? Not on the actual optimizing, just the idea of optimizing" I wonder how that works?

"the body’s natural energy flow": Again, What? The human body has NEVER been shown to have an 'energy flow' Even the ancient idea of 'vital force' was discarded by science and medicine over 80 years ago.

"similar to concepts behind many Eastern philosophies": MORE BS? Only similar to the concepts of Eastern philosophies, not ACTUALLY any Eastern philosophies. They would have to name a philosophy for any comparisons to be made. They must have missed that.

"The hologram in Power Balance is designed to resonate with and respond to the natural energy field of the body": Yeah, yeah, it's DESIGNED to resonate and respond, that gets around actually saying that it DOES resonate and respond, because that WOULD be a straight out lie. And reinforce the 'natural energy field' rubbish some more.

and

Strangely, (or not) there is no mention of Australia on PowerBalance's website anymore.

Finally, Tests have shown that the bands do NONE of the things claimed, do not have ANY plausible method of action and are no better than a box of rubber bands from your local Office Supply store.

Good Luck
TWINARP

You're being too generous.

Submitted by Really Mutternich (not verified) on January 14, 2011 - 8:29am.

To me, those claims don't even sound remotely "science-y," but "new-age-y" in the lowest understanding of that term.