Deceptive Advertising

Advertising is considered one of the most important tools of marketing for attracting customers towards the company and increasing the sale of its products and services. Advertising is done in a number of ways, the most effective being the television and print media. Though the main purpose of advertising is to attract customers and increase the profits of a company through increased sales, it has often been regarded as false and misleading.

In today’s world a majority of customers are being wary of advertisements since it contains information which is actually false and misleading.

Advertisements often promise certain benefits which the products or services when purchased fail to provide to their customers. Such types of advertisements are increasing on a gradual basis and today every ad is being suspected on this ground. These types of advertisements fall under the category of ‘Deceptive Advertisement’. These sort of advertisements make false claims or misleading statements and give their viewers a false impression which instigates them to try the product.

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People who most frequently use deceptive advertising are retailers and shopkeepers when they advertise for low-price products available in their shop just to get the customers in the shop but fail to produce them when asked for. There are many forms of advertisement which fall under the category of being deceptive. These include false promises, unsubstantiated claims, incomplete descriptions, false testimonials, partial disclosure or visual distortion of products.

Deceptive advertisement includes all those ads which induce a person to make a purchase on the basis of false claims and promises about the price and quality of competitive products.

The Federal Trade Commission is responsible for enacting laws against unfair and misleading advertisements and punishing the companies involved in the offense (Yeshin, 2005). Deceptive advertisement is not a new concept, instead it was practiced since the beginning of time and the trend is increasing in the business society with the passing time.

This has led advertisement to become an ethics issue since it is sometimes being done unintentionally whereas most of the times the intention is to fool the customer in making the purchase through attractive and misleading advertisements. The customers are made to believe that they are getting some great benefits from the product however; this is not so the case after the purchase has been made. Deceptive advertisement is used for targeting customers of all age groups through intelligent marketing tricks and tactics therefore, people need to be aware.

Retailers, airlines, weight loss programs, mobile phone warranties are some of the few companies who use this tactic for gaining sales. Such advertisements are illegal and unlawful in the eyes of law and legal action is taken against such companies even if the ad actually fooled the people or not. The overall impression counts in front of law which if false will create legal problems for the company besides its technical truthfulness (Davis, 1994). Consumers are faced daily with countless ads instigating them to try the product due to which they are unable to differentiate between true and false advertisements.

People ponder why companies need to make use of false and misleading tactics to attract the customers since truth can also get them enough customers to make high profits. Often companies produce products which have a very low quality and are not competitive so they won’t demand high prices. For making their product sale in the market as a competitive one, they mark down its price and use eye-catching advertisements which mislead the consumers in making the purchase. This doesn’t mean that every other new company or others existing in the market adopt this strategy.

Some of the advertisements are based on true and honest information while some others deceive the customers with false information. Educated customers can often see through such false claims but most of them fail to do so and end up wasting their money on deceptive products and services. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the ad must not always entail a purchase for it to be counted as deceptive; just the presence of misleading information or a false claim can demand an action against the company.

The commission has taken action and filed lawsuit against many businesses and companies who have been accused for being a part of deceptive advertising. The consumers on watching such ads or after making the purchase can file a complaint against the company and sue them for damages. The FTC is doing along on its behalf for stopping the fraudulent activity by enacting various laws against deceptive advertising (Stern, 2000). The theory states that there are different models of advertising. There are three types of deceptive advertising that are done mostly (Hameroff, 1988).

These are: • Fraudulent Advertising which is also termed as ‘outright lie’ where the ad states a lie clearly about the product which is disclosed when the customer makes the purchase and does not finds the benefit promised. • False advertising includes ‘a claim-fact discrepancy’ where all the conditions for receiving a promotion or a prize are not disclosed beforehand. • Misleading advertising also called ‘claim-belief interaction’ where an ad can make people believe about a claim which is not want the product provides.

Deceptive advertising mostly consists of three commonly found elements or in other words the representation, omission or practice of deceptive advertisements will be examined from three sides. Firstly, the representation, omission or practice that will likely mislead the consumer such as giving misleading price claims or misrepresenting a product or services orally or in written. One of the most common forms of deceptive advertising is oral misrepresentation and must taken great care of.

The Better Business Bureau once stated that an advertisement can be misleading when seen complete though every single sentence treated separately might be true. Secondly, the representation, omission or practice is examined from the eyes of a reasonable consumer or a particular target group like the youth or elderly. This means that the misrepresentation, omission or practice in the advertisement has been introduced in order to attract a particular group of customers.

For example, the weight loss programs target the fat people through false and misleading claims of reducing weight in 15 days etc. Thirdly, the representation, omission or practice must be analyzed from the perspective of being a material one. This means that the misrepresentation is a material one if it influences the consumer decision of buying the product or not. The consumer must have decided for something different if he would have not come across the deceptive advertisement (Richards, 1990).

Furthermore, internet also falls under the category of deceptive advertisement since most of the websites often collect the personal information of the user without his or her consent. Deception through internet is mostly related to the privacy issues. Some examples of companies who have been cited for deceptive advertising include United Weight Control, Nutri-System, Inc. , The Diet Center, Physician Weight Loss Clinic, Weight Watchers International, Inc. , and Jenny Craig. Action was taken against these companies and they were made to modify their advertising and marketing practices.

Not only are these companies held liable for deceptive advertising but also the advertising agencies who participated in designing the advertisement. All others who participated in the creation of deceptive ad are held liable by the law especially the advertising agencies that knew about the deceptive element in the ad but failed to substantiate the claims. Sometimes the producers are also held liable since they know about the true traits of a product and by not raising a voice against the ad means that they are backing the claim.

The liable companies are subject to penalties by the law which may be stopping the ad immediately, paying for damages to the customers, correcting the ad or even requiring the company to leave the industry or banning it for a certain time period in extreme cases of deception. Besides Federal Trade Commission, Better Business Bureau and National Advertising Review Council has been also given the responsibility of monitoring the truth in advertisements.

Moreover, competitors can be the greatest and most important source for detecting deceptive advertisements in their industry since they serve as watchdogs on their competitors marketing practices. The competitors can sue the company involved in the deceptive advertisement in order to gain market advantages. The customers too can file a complaint against the deceptive ads with the above mentioned organizations who will investigate the accusation (Garza, 2000).

A question that comes to our mind is that is there anything which helps in identifying boundary between truth and deception in advertisements. When we see a number of advertisements daily flashing in front of our eyes, it is very difficult for us to pierce through the flash and identify the element of deception in them. This influences us to buy the product and to ultimately find that the benefit promised is not attained or that we have paid much more than what we got. However, if advertisements are watched carefully then consumers can keep an eye out for deception constantly.

One should know of the many ways in which advertisers can trick the customers in buying the product they want us to buy. Advertisers usually incorporate into their ads the feelings, reactions and responses of customers which they obtained through tests and surveys in creating advertisements. They use these to trick the customers by including in their advertisements those claims which consumers want the most. There are several things which customers can look for while identifying a boundary between truth and deception in advertisements (Stern, 2000).

Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising

Advertising is part of our daily lives as advertisers use numerous ways to attract the customer's attention. Advertising can be referred to as non-personal communication on a corporation or its products that are broadcasted to viewers through a mass medium. All efforts to inform and convince must respect the principles of human freedom for them to be right. Highest ethics should be practiced when advertising to children. Advertisers should shape their subject to attract audiences of the scope and demographic structure sought. Advertisers should practice transparency. There should be the need for proper conduct and rapport with consumers ought to be honest and fair. . All advertisements normally use rhetoric images as well as visual effects that make these products appealing to consumers. The question is, what is the purpose for the advertisements and what makes a consumer to see the images and want to try the alcoholic product.

Advertisements are normally done on TV, magazines and the radios hence are accessible to the target market in this case of whiskey advertisement the young adults. The advertisement industry has grown rapidly in the past years as effective advertisements has led to increase in sales for companies, hence the need for companies to study all means that an advertisement can attract the attention of the potential buyer of any product. One of the most common ways of advertising in alcohol products but controversial is the use of sex to sell alcoholic products (Carstarphen et al, 114). To analyze the advertisement of Evan Williams’ whiskey, a rhetorical triangle is used. Also included are ethos, pathos as well as logos. The target audience for this advertisement was young males and females in their late teens, mid and late twenties.

The advertiser uses pathos in the advertisement by evoking emotional feelings especially from the men.To get the male side of the equation, the advertiser draws attention as well as interest, by the use of a striking, attractive young lady on the right side of the advertisement, in bright colors to draw attention to a bottle of whiskey that is right in the center of the page. The thing that makes the attention of people to stick is that the attractive young lady is in fact posing next to nothing despite being incredibly good looking. There is also a way to get female attention to the advertisement. This is done through showing a plain girl, seeming a typical girl during the younger years. Besides that, there is an image of the same little girl but now she has become a woman, very attractive, more powerful, and full of confidence and self-esteem. Then the only way to achieve that is by drinking Evan Williams Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. (Williams)

The purpose of the advertisement is to attract the young adults to consume the advertised whiskey. The first very important information that is sent across to all potential buyers is that the whiskey has been brewed for seven years before being brought to the market. With a longer period of brewing, it means that the whiskey is matured and of quality hence being attractive to potential buyers. The use of this point illustrates the advertiser’s use of logos in the advertisement as they expect the consumer to be rational in their analysis of the advertisement such that they can tell the time period the whiskey took to mature.

The advertiser uses sexual stereotypes that include a blonde hair, with blue eyes as well as breasts that are large in size. The whole thing leads to the impression that sex sells (Carstarphen et al, 114). This is the advertiser appealing to the ethos. Also cannot see the trustworthiness of this advert writer and most likely there is a snobby attitude as it seems that the only way that people care about others is if they are good looking and the less attractive are viewed unequal. This fails to comply with the ethos such that it is not ethically right. It is also difficult for the woman who is less attractive on the right side of the advertisement to achieve similar opportunities than the one who appears sexually enticing to the audience. I believe that the advertisement is showing poor ethics hence failing to comply with the industry ethos.

Logically the advertisement is essentially sexual. There is the use of a scantily clad lady, who looks so attractive in bright colors, standing just next to a bottle of whiskey. The advertiser also tries to use a slogan that will go with the product as well as its application in a completely different situation including a woman. They also show how better it gets when aged seven years. It is degrading to the woman who appears in the advertisement since it shows her being ugly in the first image, and then again in another shot, she appears years later with less clothing and make up done, suggesting that she now looks better. The problem with it is that only few women look like that hence setting the bar too high to reach for ordinary people. I would also mention that there is nothing wrong with girl on the left as she is plain and simple. The collective responsibility of the society is drained away through wearing close to nothing in order to catch attention as well as impress. The photo on the left looks worse because they have not done the hair. The lady also wears a shirt that's wrinkled, simple earnings as well as a simplistic vest.

The advertiser tries to get sexual emotions in most of their alcohol advertisements. Here they have used an attractive woman standing close to a bottle of whiskey. t. The advertisement is able to connect emotionally with the consumers who eventually buy the products. The campaign makes it more differentiated in product in comparison to its competitors. The effectiveness of the advertising campaign can be seen in the responsiveness of the consumers such that they are able to consume more of the products hence an increase in the products sales revenue. This thus highlights the effectiveness of the advertisement.

The target audience of this campaign is the general public more specifically, home. The effectiveness in the delivery of the advertisement is quite successful. To me, the delivery of the advertisement is easy to relate to and because of that. I could be easily convinced do consume the product. The effective delivery of the advertisement makes its more appealing to the target audience hence helps in the achievement of their desired marketing goals.There is the impression that drinking this product will make the person to get this particular woman. There is the attraction on the female emotional side whereby there is the talk of how a young decent looking woman goes on to become attractive, the impression created here being that this product makes women become very attractive. This is appealing to consumer ethos. In the advert, the younger girl who looks less attractive seems to be less confident but in the older picture she looks more attractive. In the newer picture, she looks more vibrant and her clothing is more sexually proactive than in her older self, where she used to cover up and dint show any skin. Therefore the advert shows that a person becomes happier if they are good looking and sexually dressed unlike when they are not good looking persons

Conclusion

        In conclusion, I think the use of sexual appeal is a terrible way of advertising. The problem is that all companies have adopted this way of advertising and this has led to consumption of alcohol even for the under aged. I have also noticed that the different angles of this advertisement are similar as sex is used to sell everything. The society also seems to have adapted to this type of advertisement and therefore no changes will occur any time soon hence sexually racy ads will continue to be seen in the magazines (Sell now, 89). Hopefully companies will one day do away with these types of ads and make ads that are suitable to our culture.

References

Carstarphen, Meta G, and Susan C. Zavoina. Sexual Rhetoric: Media Perspectives on

Sexuality, Gender, and Identity. Westport, Conn: Grenwood Press, 1999. Print.

Messaris, Paul. Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising. London:

Sage Publications, 2002. Print.

Sellnow, Deanna D. The Rhetorical Power of Popular Culture: Considering Mediated Texts.

Los Angeles: SAGE, 2010. Print.

Williams, Evan. ThinkUP Cube. 2012. Web.

http://www.thinkupcube.com/portfolios/evan-williams/

BIBLIOGRAPHY l 1033 n.d. Evan William Whiskey Advertisement. <https://www.google.co.ke/search?q=whiskey+advertisements&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ez-lUpDgA4e6yAOt8IDoAg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=706#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=sMvE-wb7IGdTrM%3A%3B6o1oiVBv1ygEQM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fannieplowman13.files.wordpress.com>.

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The Role of Advertising Appeals

Abstract: The importance of our research work is for marketing and advertising concerns that how they can make their advertisement more effective and efficient. It also gives direction for marketing managers and advertisers for the application of appeals in their ads. TV ads attitude is made by using different appeals and celebrity expert roles and this remains very effective for marketing strategies. People take interest and spend time to watch such type of ads which give information about product’s features, specifications.

We investigated the role of emotional and rational appeal in Television advertising attitude and we also detected that how the efficiently celebrity or any professional expert can be used in TV ads. Research showed the practical importance of rational appeal in TV ads and how people respond towards such appealing attitude of ads. The data was collected from the students and scholars of “The Islamia University Of Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan. The briefing was given to the respondents before collection of the data by depicting the picture of cellular companies’ ads and mobile phone making companies’ advertisements, how they make their advertisements attractive and create arousal and intense desire for having their product and packages. Key Words: Rational Appeal, Emotional Appeal, celebrity & expert, advertising attitude.

I. Introduction

Advertising has become one of the most important commercial activities in the modern competitive environment. Companies spend a large part of their budget to produce and run advertisements for promotions to communicate information about their company and products. Companies hope that consumers will purchase their products due to the advertisements, which deliver messages about a certain brand and its products. Of all marketing weapons, advertising is widely known for its long lasting impact on viewer’s mind (Katke, 2007). Advertising is a subset of promotion mix which is one of the 4P’s in the marketing mix i.e. product, price, place and promotion.

Pakistani people mostly watches media news channels because in Pakistan there is democratic environment here people are political mind the main reason is their interest developed by media channels they watches talk shows, debate programs, current political affairs, morning shows, crime shows, drama serials etc. in every news channels they keep update with the breaking news in every news bulletin, after news updates of one minute or more, hourly and half hourly they takes news breaks and play advertisements of sponsored companies. Media takes breath on advertisement because sponsorship of news updates and programs which are taken by the companies whose advertisement being played on media channels.

These companies fulfill channel’s expenses. Due this factor of large viewership of news channels in Pakistan, companies makes advertisements according to the psychology of Pakistanis people and in response they earn huge profits and sales their advertised products. Peoples remain in front of television every time they want to update their awareness & knowledge. Now in every shop, home, office even in every sort of waiting areas of business points like doctor’s clinic there is a television and the patients’ watches television. Mostly ads are of thirty seconds time duration that’s why advertisers use attractive factors which hit the psychology of every age of person who is watching that advertisement on television.

A company cannot make dream to be a well known brand until they invests in their promotional activities, for which consumer market have been dominating through advertisements (Hussainy et al., 2008). The major aim of advertising is to impact on buying behavior; however, this impact about brand is changed or strengthened frequently in people’s memories. Memories about the brand consist of those associations that are related to brand name in consumer mind. Doing so advertiser creates those types of advertisements, which carry emotional bond with consumer. Therefore, that consumer is more likely to associate with advertisements of those brands, which have emotional and rational values and messages.

Because emotional and rational appeals also provide a strong brand cue and stimulate category-based processing. Advertisers use different appeals in advertisements which arouse the viewer’s emotions which creates purchase intention for product. They use different psychological barriers, celebrities, models, create persuasive attractive environment which directly impacts on viewers mind and customer’s purchase intention.

The Role Of Advertising Appeals, Role Of Celebrity & Expert In T.V Advertising Attitude tends to be logical, and television advertising tends to be emotional or rational in its appeal. The impact of advertisements in Pakistan can easily observed, people copy the style and dresses of actress, actors, female models people becoming trendy and fashionable. Their memory about product’s specifications and features are very sharp due to watching TV ads. The sales of advertised products are very high. People get mental satisfaction after purchasing the advertised products. Attitude has crucial importance in psychology but it is also have great extent use in social sciences and marketing. Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) say that attitudes are psychological tendencies which grow by addition from learning and a continuous attention towards object.

Lin (2008) defined advertising attitude is a continuous reactive orientation got from a certain object. Such orientation represents an individual’s liking and disliking, and what is right and wrong. Celebrities are the people who publically famous figures. Companies expects from consumers to become habitual through the high popularity or attraction of a celebrity and then feel good about the products being recommended (Lin, 2008). An expert is a person with a unique social status due to his/her profession, special training, or extraordinary experience that allows him/her to provide consumer opinions (Lin, 2008). Some of the celebrities and experts take professional part in making advertisements of companies due to being their brand representatives. Celebrity and expert includes: Drama & movie’s actors, actresses, cricketers, players, Doctors, media channels anchor persons etc.

II. Literature Review

Today, advertising companies invest huge amounts of their earnings in advertising in different media such as television, radio, magazine and etc. television is one of the most common media for this purpose. Television generally has massive effects on viewers for a variety of reasons. First, a heavy investment is spent on advertising, and big spenders are assumed to know what they are doing. Also, people spend lots of time from the day. The use of different appeals and celebrity, Expert role made advertising attitude and these factors have positive impacts to shape out the tv.ads. Now ads are prepared based on these approaches and have very significant impact on customers mind.

In the response of watching advertised products on T.V people memorize the product and they move towards purchasing whether this product is necessary for them or not. When an ad played again and again then it creates positioning in the customer’s mind ads made their image and makes psychological impacts due the use of celebrity, music, appeals (emotional, rational), young female models, humor, experts these factors made an ad popular and easy to recall for customer while purchasing. In Pakistan 75% of the total population consists of youth and mostly they are student in school, college, universities some people do jobs.

When young people choose advertising information and characters as their role models, they may not only identify with them but also intend to copy them in terms of how they dress and what they are going to buy (Latif et al., 2011). Other 25% people work in offices, factories and have their own businesses. People don’t have enough time to take information about the company and its products they depend on advertised products on T.V which is based on strong marketing campaigns using such appeals and celebrities for making their ads more persuasive. People don’t have enough time to take information about the company and its products they depend on advertised products on TV. In our study we took example of cellular companies and mobile phone making companies’ advertisements in general for taking the real respondent’s data for the actual results of our research.

III. Hypothesis Development

3.2the Use of Advertising Appeals In T.V Advertisement Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) defined advertising appeal as supplier’s application of a psychologically motivating power to arouse consumers desire and action for buying while sending broadcasting signals to change receivers concepts of the product. Hence, advertising appeal is applied to attract the consumers’ attention, to change their concepts about the product, and to affect them emotionally about a specific product or service (Belch and Belch, 1998; Schiffman and Kanuk, 2007). 3.3Rational Appeal Rational appeal is used as it shows rationality of consumer choices in products by making clear differences of competitor’s product. This appeal is used in a way that it gives sense to the viewer what to buy and what not buy. H1: Rational appeal has a significantly positive impact on TV Advertising Attitude. 3.4Emotional Appeal Emotional Appeal is actually emotional bindings by psychological attributes of consumer’s family & blood relationships in TV ads. Emotional appeal is used in a way to capture the attention of consumer towards