The protection on the concept of "Commercial Speech"

As an individual with a Bachelors in Strategic Communication with minors in Marketing, and who is currently obtaining a Masters in Communication- the concept of Commercial Speech will be around me until the day I retire. Knowing the crucial in’s and out’s of commercial speech are important

Over the last few decades, the Supreme Court has extended an ​increasing level of First Amendment (F.A.) protection to commercial speech. According to an article written by, Martin H. Redish, "Commercial speech has become one of the most litigated and controversial areas of First Amendment protection." This so called "controversy" arose from multiple misunderstandings of the ways in which commercial speech furthers the values of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression.

Commercial speech, defined by the Supreme Court has chosen to not include all expression concerning the relative merits of commercial products or services. Rather, the Court has confined the concept to speech that does no more than propose a commercial transaction. “Thus, speech either opposing a commercial purchase or neutrally describing the qualities of a commercial product or service receives full First Amendment protection, while speech that directly promotes a purchase receives a reduced level of protection,” (Redish, 2017).

To show how commercial speech advances free speech values, Martin H. Redish adopted a “perspectives framework” for the First Amendment theory. Redish states that the First Amendment values are viewed from four different perspectives: the speaker perspective, the listener perspective, the regulator perspective, and the rationalist perspective.

In his article, Redish showed us how protecting commercial speech advances freedom of speech from each perspective; in contrast, rejecting or reducing constitutional protection for commercial speech contravenes the reasons each perspective values free speech.

However, one case stood out in particular. The case of Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. in 1976. In this case, on behalf of prescription drug consumers, the Virginia Citizens Consumer Council challenged a Virginia statute that declared it an unprofessional conduct for licensed pharmacists to advertise their prescription drug prices.

On appeal from a ruling by a three-judge District Court panel, the Supreme Court granted the Virginia State Board of Pharmacy the review. The court invalidated the state’s prohibition on prescription drug advertising as a First Amendment violation.

In their ruling, The Supreme Court stated, “Advertising, however tasteless and excessive it sometimes may seem, is nonetheless dissemination of information as to who is producing and selling what product, for what reason, and at what price,” (Redish, 2017).

This case was interesting to learn about in correlation to F.A. protection and the concept of commercial speech due to there being a mutual desire from the same pharmacy parties wanting this protection on commercial speech. Usually, companies are fighting for their freedom when it comes to commercial speech, yet we have companies agreeing to withhold a crucial “up” that they may be able to use to advertise and gain business over their competitors- they made an industry wide alliance.

This said alliance was that there was a mutual understanding between pharmacy owners to withhold product pricing in their advertisements to allow a mutual chance of service opportunities among all pharmacies.