Puff piece

In everyday language, puffery refers to exaggerated or false praise. In law, puffery is a promotional statement or claim that expresses subjective rather than objective views, which no "reasonable person" would take literally. Puffery serves to "puff up" an exaggerated image of what is being described and is especially featured in testimonials.

Puff piece is an idiom for a journalistic form of puffery: an article or story of exaggerating praise that often ignores or downplays opposing viewpoints or evidence to the contrary.

In a legal context, the term originated in the 1892 English Court of Appeal case Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company, which centred on whether a monetary reimbursement should be paid when an influenza preventive device failed to work. The manufacturers had paid for advertising stating that £100 would be paid in such circumstances then failed to follow this promise. Part of their defence was that such a statement was "mere puff" and not meant to be taken seriously. While the defence ultimately lost the case, the principle was confirmed that certain statements made by advertisers that were obviously not made in a serious manner could be exempt from usual rules relating to promises in open contracts.

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defined puffery as a "term frequently used to denote the exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a seller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precisely determined."

The FTC stated in 1984 that puffery does not warrant enforcement action by the Commission. In its FTC Policy Statement on Deception, the Commission stated: "The Commission generally will not pursue cases involving obviously exaggerated or puffing representations, i.e., those that the ordinary consumers do not take seriously." e.g., "The Finest Fried Chicken in the World."

...
Wikipedia