Deceptive advertising

Deceptive advertising, also known as misleading advertising, is a type of marketing strategy which is defined by the Federal Trade Commission as any explicit or implicit claim that may mislead consumers by causing them to believe anything before making a purchase.

The goal of advertising is to raise a company's market capitalization and encourage investment and profit growth. In the United States, advertising expenditures totaled $223 billion in 2018 and are projected to reach $240.68 billion in 2019. The significance that organizational leaders place on advertising in their quest for expansion and sustainability is supported by this statistic. Businesses use clever and flexible tactics, such as creative advertising, to attract customers and boost sales in a competitive market.

Businesses advertising operations are unlikely to hurt customers inasmuch as they permit saving on search costs and promote a better match between tastes and consumption options when the quality of an item on sale can be checked prior to purchase (the so-called search goods). However, a lot of times, such as with experience goods, product quality cannot be thoroughly verified before consumption. In these situations, advertising could have a negative side: mediocre companies might use marketing channels to persuade customers to make poor purchases (deceptive advertising). The world's antitrust and competition policy authorities are well aware of such a significant threat.

Examples of deceptive advertisement

Beauty Industry

The way that women are portrayed in advertising and the media in general is frequently questioned, particularly when young models are used, stereotypes are maintained, women are undervalued, the media is sexually provocative, and unrealistic body images are presented. As they compare and strive to meet the unrealistic ideals set by the media, these pictures may have a harmful impact on women and girls. The ability to adapt, transform, and alter images with the use of cutting-edge graphics editing applications like Photoshop has increased in recent years, raising the already inflated expectations placed on some advertising imagery. The imagery used in magazine advertisements for fashion, fragrances, and cosmetics have become a source of worry for the UK's advertising authority (Advertising Standards Authority) in recent years. Moreover, in the United States, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Business Bureaus Claims (NAD)'s decision to prohibit a CoverGirl advertisement for "excessive Photoshopping" (Waller 2015, p.109) was viewed as a milestone verdict and a crackdown.

References

Bonsu S. (2020). https://gsmi-ijgb.com/Samuel-Bonsu-Deceptive-Advertising.pdf . "Deceptive Advertising: A Corporate Social Responsibility Perspective", 6(2), 1-15. Salvatore P., Piero T., Giovanni U. (2015), https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/170622/1/disce-wp025.pdf "Deceptive Advertising with Rational Buyers". Waller, D. S. (2015). Photoshop and Deceptive Advertising: An Analysis of Blog Comments. Studies in Media and Communication, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.11114/smc.v3i1.841

Author: Claudio Mameli