Why results not typical stopped working, and what to show instead.

The format is familiar in any practice that sells a change in the body: the standout case, the striking pair of photographs, and underneath, in grey, the words results not typical. For years that line was doing real legal work. It has not been doing it since 2009.

When the Federal Trade Commission revised its Endorsement Guides that year, it removed the safe harbour that had allowed an advertiser to show an unusual result and neutralise it with a disclaimer. The 2023 revisions reinforced the same position for social media and influencer content, which is where most of this now happens.

The reasoning is worth understanding, because it explains why the obvious fixes do not work. The Commission pointed to research showing that consumers pay little attention to those disclaimers and go on expecting the exceptional result they just saw. It also addressed the natural objection directly, noting that even disclaimers substantially larger than the ones advertisers typically use would likely not be effective.

So the problem was never the size of the type. Making the disclaimer bigger, bolder or more prominent does not fix it, because the fix was never in the disclaimer.

What applies instead is a choice between two paths. Either you hold adequate proof that the result shown is typical, or you clearly and conspicuously disclose the results consumers can generally expect from the same regimen.

That second path is where this stops being an advertising question and becomes an operations question, which is the real content of this piece. To state your generally expected results, you have to know them. Most practices do not, because nobody ever counted.

Sit with that for a second, because it is the opportunity hiding inside the rule. If you cannot say what typically happens, you cannot use your best case at all. But if you can, you get to say a sentence almost nobody in your market is able to say, and it is far more persuasive than the photograph you were relying on.

Compare the two. A spectacular before and after asks the reader to hope they are the exception. A sentence like most people who complete the programme see this much change over this long asks the reader to place themselves inside a range. The second is a smaller claim and a much easier one to believe, and belief is the thing that books appointments.

There is a distinction worth keeping, because it preserves the most useful material you have. A testimonial about the experience is not a claim about results. Someone describing what the sessions were like, how they were treated, what surprised them, whether they felt listened to, carries none of this burden, because it is not asserting an outcome. Those are usually your best quotes anyway, and they are the ones people trust most.

The practical order of work, if you want to fix this properly, is short. Count your cases from the last year. Work out what the middle of the range actually looks like, not the top. Write down how many people finish and how many drop out, because completion is part of what a prospective client is really asking. Then decide what you are able to state, and state that.

You will probably find that your typical result is less dramatic than your best case and more impressive than you feared, and that saying it plainly is the most differentiated thing you can publish.

The honest note, against my own interest: this one is not a marketing project. It is an afternoon with your own records, and no agency can do it for you, because we do not have your outcomes. Anyone who offers to solve this with better copy is offering to make the claim prettier, which is the exact thing that stopped being a defence in 2009.

Where help is worth paying for is afterwards: turning what you found into something publishable every week, and answering what it brings in.

A necessary note. This piece describes the FTC Endorsement Guides as revised in 2009 and updated in 2023, and reflects guidance available in August 2026. It is not legal advice. Product categories such as supplements carry additional specific rules, state boards impose their own advertising standards on licensed practitioners, and your own counsel is the authority on your situation.