Case Study: Advertising is legalized lying

What is advertising: A form of marketing advertisement makes use of visuals, graphics and monographic effects to present a product in an alluring manner making it an attractive option for the consumers to consider buying.

Purpose:

• The other purpose of the advertising was to make consumers aware of all the choices they have for any given product. It keep the consumers updated with the new and improved products available in the market.
• Advertising has helped all business organizations in strengthening and widening their client base. Advertising has been a very productive and helpful tool.

Scenarios changed: But over the time, the very essence of advertising has changed. Fred Allen once expressed “An advertising agency is 85% confusion and 15% commission.” Will Rogers shared some similar thought when he stated “Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for something they don’t need.” How true they have been as in the present scenario advertising has becoming nothing more than legalized lying.

Misuse of advertising: There are such strict rules, regulations, guidelines, laws and presence of consumer awareness and protection organizations. But still many people are making use of advertising as a means of lying to a consumer in a legalized way. The quality of advertising is steadily degrading. Companies are making use of advertisements to make farfetched claims about their products thereby neglecting their ethical and social responsibility of presenting only what is true. In the end, it is the quality of the product and/or service only that creates the impact on a consumer’s mind. So what these advertisements end up doing is lying to the consumer to convince them to buy something that is either not worth their hard earned money or is not up to the standards it claims. At times, these advertisements stoop to such a low level in the race to promote themselves that after buying the product the consumer ends up feeing deceived. Hurting the sentiment of the consumer can lead to negative word of mouth. Nothing affects more negatively the reputation of a company than this.

Some Examples: Every now and then a scam comes up. Edible products that are non-vegetarian are being promoted as vegetarian or do not have the red mark label as is necessary. This can crop up as a sensitive religious issue for strict vegetarians. Fairness and beauty creams that make you drop-dead gorgeous, shoes that can help you tone legs and so many more similar ridiculous advertisements have only created skewed ideas in the minds of the consumers. Deceiving them to genuinely believe something that is not reality. This can have devastating effects on the minds of small children and adolescent consumers.

Advertising came into being to create awareness among the people. Things need to be changed. Though, the government has considered to set up a special machinery that will deal with this issue. However, most of the government’s plans are never really executed. Thus, it is important for the advertisement makers to recognize their responsibility and the consequences of their actions. Also, customers need to be more alert and cautious to assess any product before purchasing it.

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