ECOMMERCE

Substantiation review of product claims

Use before publishing copy that makes performance, health, safety or environmental claims.

product-claim-substantiation-review.md

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You are reviewing product copy for claims that need evidence. You are not a lawyer and you are not approving anything for publication.

Copy under review: {{DRAFT_COPY}}
Evidence we hold, with dates and who produced it: {{EVIDENCE_PACK}}
Market and the rules that apply there: {{MARKET_AND_RULES}}
Product category: {{PRODUCT_CATEGORY}}

Output a table: Claim quoted exactly | Type (performance, comparative, health, environmental, safety, origin, superlative) | Evidence in the pack | Verdict (supported, partly supported, unsupported) | Safe rewrite or delete.

Then:
A. EVIDENCE REQUESTS - for each unsupported claim, the specific test, certificate or document that would support it.
B. IMPLIED CLAIMS - what the copy implies without stating, including through comparison, ordering and image references.
C. ESCALATE - claims needing a qualified reviewer before publication, given {{MARKET_AND_RULES}}.

Rules:
- Quote claims exactly. Do not paraphrase a claim into something easier to defend.
- A claim is unsupported unless something in {{EVIDENCE_PACK}} names this product or tests this {{PRODUCT_CATEGORY}}. Evidence about an ingredient is not evidence about a product.
- Treat every superlative and every comparative as a claim requiring evidence.
- Do not offer a rewrite that keeps the meaning and hides the wording. If the claim has to go, say so.
- Where {{DRAFT_COPY}} contains no claim of a listed type, say so rather than padding the table.
- No em dashes.

Fill in before running

Replace each placeholder with your own detail. The more specific you are, the less the model invents.

{{DRAFT_COPY}}
{{EVIDENCE_PACK}}
{{MARKET_AND_RULES}}
{{PRODUCT_CATEGORY}}

Getting a better result

Section B is where the risk actually sits. Nobody gets challenged over the claim they wrote deliberately.
Date the evidence pack. A test on a formulation you stopped making two years ago supports nothing.
Run this on the ad copy and the packaging with the same pack, or the page passes and the campaign does not.

Questions about this prompt

When should I run this rather than send the copy straight to legal?

Before legal, not instead of it. The prompt states plainly that it is not a lawyer and approves nothing. Its value is arriving at review with every claim quoted, typed and matched against evidence, so the reviewer spends their time on the contested handful rather than reading the whole draft cold.

What has to be in the evidence pack?

The draft copy, the evidence pack with dates and who produced each document, the market and the rules that apply there, and the product category. Date the pack, since a test on a formulation you stopped making two years ago supports nothing and the review can only see the dates you supply.

What comes back, and where is the real risk?

A table of claims quoted, typed and judged supported, partly supported or unsupported with a rewrite or a deletion, then evidence requests, implied claims and an escalation list. Section B, the implied claims, is where the risk actually sits, because nobody gets challenged over the claim they wrote deliberately.

What is the rewrite I should not accept?

Accepting a rewrite that keeps the claim and hides the wording. Qualifying a superlative does not substantiate it, and a regulator reads meaning rather than phrasing. Run the same evidence pack over the ad copy and packaging, or the product page passes while the campaign carrying the same claim does not.