Deceptive Advertising

Ethics in advertising to most would sound like the definition for irony. And according to

different sources as defined, there can be nothing ethical about anything that contains the

word deceptive in it. So what exactly is Deceptive Advertising? It is advertising that makes a

false claim or misleading statement, as well as advertising that creates a false impression. In

other words, it is an act of deliberately misleading the consumers about a product, service or a

company by offering a false or misrepresentation of information or data in their advertising or

other promotional materials. Deceptive advertisement also known as false advertisement is a

type of fraud that is considered a serious offense in many countries of the world. Companies

use this dishonest trickery to get you to buy their product or service through info-commercials,

television ads, billboards or with famous celebrities endorsing their products.

This all began back in the 50’s when airtime was sold to advertisers for a Vitamix

blender. Then in 1984 Herbalife aired the first infomercial on USA Network. Almost thirty years

later, spray on hair, grills named after famous athletes, food products, exercise equipment,

beauty products and on and on are part of a national conversation if not actually in American

homes. Yet the majority of people have come to believe “truth in advertising” doesn’t exist in

this day and age so most quickly jump to the conclusion that all advertising is false advertising.

But what about the people who do believe? How about the ones who get swindled out of their

money or believe that the products or services they are getting will make them healthier, more

beautiful or handsome, skinnier, more attractive, successful or rich? These are the two major

issues with deceptive advertisements. Retailers (clothing and footwear), the Auto Sales

industry, the pharmaceutical companies, and Food Distributors to name a few all need to sell

their products or services and they are willing to do whatever it takes to make the sale. And

how do they reach the consumer? Through advertising of course! The question is; are they

advertising what the consumer gets, often times it is not!

We are saturated by commercials on television, online in newspapers and magazines.

Companies make their products look as good as possible and involve the use of puffery and

weasel words. Puffing is the use of opinions and exaggerated statements. The word “better”,

“best”, “greatest” and “finest” are typically used in these puffery advertisements. The

information is not intended to be factual. You have heard such things as “Coke, It’s the real

thing.” or “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup”, “Subway, eat fresh.” A weasel

word is used in advertising to make a claim look legitimate to the casual listener or reader. But

if you look at it more closely it too proves to be empty and meaningless. Like when they say a

medication “helps control acne” it does not actually claim to stop or cure the acne. So “help”

and “control” are weasels. Commonly used weasel words include: “help”, “acts”, “works”, “can

be”, “up to”, “as much as”, “refreshes”, “comforts”, “fights”, “the feel of”, “looks like”, “tastes

like”, and “strengthened”. But puffing and weasel words are generally not considered deceptive

in the eyes of the law. Sellers are allowed some leeway in describing their products and such

statements are typically considered innocent misrepresentations.

So, how is it that they can get on TV or any other type of media and tell you it’s the best

or show you something that when you go in looks nothing like what you saw yet the consumer

buys it and continues to settle for less? Because they make us think we need the product that

this time this product will do the trick and they lure us in with words or pictures thus filling our

need through deception. As consumers in a world of constant advertising messages being

flashed before our eyes, we have unfortunately become a society that is very susceptible to

fraud or misleading marketing. Is it right? Most certainly not! But in a market economy,

businesses are encouraged to compete in pursuit of their own self interests; making a profit.

But what happens when these companies strategically and unfairly compete to sell their

products to us, the consumers, and opt for this unethical practice of deceit? In the long run,

these companies will suffer. This is because when people start discovering the company’s

tactics and that the products or services are not what they advertised, the consumer begins to

distrust and fewer people will buy from them.

Retailers are most guilty of deceptive advertising techniques by systematically

advertising their merchandise at low prices to get customers into their stores and then often

times they fail to have the merchandise or they offer you a buy one get one free promotion

when in reality it is simply at the regular price for a short time and then it goes back to a

discounted price, in the end you get two for the same price regardless.

Deceptive practices can take on many forms such as false promises, unsubstantiated

claims, incomplete descriptions, false testimonials or comparisons, small print qualifications of

advertisements, partial disclosure, or visual distortion of products. And some of the deceptive

methods that are finding their way to consumers are through; Hidden fees, surcharges and

disclaimers, “Going out of Business” sales, Misuse of the word “free”, Manipulation of units

and standards, Fillers and oversized packaging, Manipulation of terms, Bait & switch,

Inconsistent comparison, misleading illustrations, false coloring and guarantee without a

remedy specified. For a better awareness of these deceptive methods you must understand

what they are and how they work:

Hidden fees, surcharges & disclaimers, in one method that service providers use to

strategically nail on the fees and surcharges that are not disclosed to the consumers in

the advertised price. One of the most common is for activation of services such as

mobile phones, but is also becoming frequently in broadband, telephony, gym

memberships, and air travel. In most of the cases, the fees as well as the disclaimers are

hidden in small print and elaborate terminology and language that they are essentially

unidentified

"Going out of business" sales. In many cases, liquidator companies are hired to sell

merchandise from a closing store and their tactic is to raise the prices on items that

were already marked-down on clearance. For items already marked down, this means

the liquidator increases the price and then "discounts" it from there. Also common is for

the sale prices at a retail chain's other stores to be lower than the liquidator's prices at

the closing stores.

Misuse of the word "free", by definition "free" means "devoid of cost or obligation".

However, retailers often use this word for something which is included in the overall

price. For example, "buy one, get one free" sales. The second item is absolutely not

"free" under the normal definition, since, to get it, the consumer has to pay the full price

of the first item.

Manipulation of measurement units and standards. Manufacturers and sellers may

manipulate standards of a product to totally mean something different than their widely

understood meaning. For example, Fretter Appliance stores claimed "I’ll give you five

pounds of coffee if I can’t beat your best deal". While initially they gave away that

quantity, they later redefined them as "Fretter pounds", which, unsurprisingly, were

much lighter than standard pounds.

Fillers and oversized packaging. It is unfortunate to say but there are products that are

sold with fillers, which increase the legal weight of the product with something that

costs the producer very little compared to what the consumer thinks that he or she is

buying. The most common example is in the Food industry, where meat is injected with

broth or even brine (up to 15%) to make it heavier. Another example is TV dinners, they

are filled with gravy or other sauces instead of meat.

Manipulation of terms. Many of the advertisers terms have some meaning, but the

specific extent is not legally defined, leading to their abuse. A frequent example is

"organic" food. "Light" food is also even a more common manipulation term used. The

term has been variously used to mean low in calories, sugars, carbohydrates, salt,

texture, thickness, or even light in color. Labels such as "All-Natural" are frequently used

but are essentially meaningless. Tobacco companies, for many years, used terms like

"low tar", "light", "ultra-light", "mild" or "natural" in order to imply that products with

such labels had less detrimental effects on health, but in recent years it was proved that

those terms were considered misleading.

Incomplete comparison. "Better" means one product is superior than another in some

way, while "best" means it is superior to all others. However, advertisers are failing to

list the way in each they are being compared (price, size, quality, etc.) and, in the case of

"better", to what they are comparing it to (a competitor's product, an earlier version of

their own product, or nothing at all). Therefore, without defining how they are using the

terms "better" or "best", the terms become meaningless.

Misleading illustrations. A perfect example of this is advertised images of hamburgers,

which may show the items to be larger and juicier than they really are. The images in

the advertisement also show the ingredient from the side of the hamburger, while in

actuality they would be much less visible in the actual product. Products that are sold

unassembled or unfinished may also have a picture of the finished product, without a

corresponding picture of what the customer is actually buying.

False coloring is used to make people think food is riper, fresher, or healthier than it

really is. Food coloring can be a big form of deception. When combined with added

sugar or corn syrup, bright colors give the subconscious impression of healthy, ripe fruit,

full of antioxidants and photochemical. One variation is packaging which obscures the

true color of the foods. For example, red mesh bags containing yellow oranges or

grapefruit, which then appear to be a ripe orange or red.

Guarantee without a remedy specified - If a company does not say what they will do if

the product fails to meet expectations, then they are free to do very little. This is due to

a legal technicality that states that a contract cannot be enforced unless it provides a

basis not only for determining a breach but also for giving a remedy in the event of a

breach.

"No risk" -Advertisers frequently claim there is no risk to trying their product, when

clearly there is. For example, they may charge your credit card for the product, offering

a full refund if not satisfied. However, the risks of such an offer are numerous

Acceptance by default -This refers to a contract or agreement where no response is

interpreted as a positive response in favor of the business. An example of this is a

subscription automatically renews unless the customer explicitly requests it to stop. This

is even conducted when the customer may have specified a specific length of

subscription up front, that is then exceeded and renewed without notification to the

customer.

Undisclosed dishonest business practices - for example in 2011, several banks, including

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, TD Bank and Citizens Financial Group paid hundreds

of millions in settlements over the practice. This is because customers’ transactions

include both deposits and withdrawals; the banks were sequencing the transactions so

that the withdrawals were processed before the deposits, creating an overdraft in the

customers’ accounts.

All these methods are a very sad reality of deceptive advertising but, in today’s society

advertisers are being held more and more accountable for the messages they produce. As well

as the manufacturers, who are held responsible for their products meeting the standards set

forth by the advertisement. Most companies also cover themselves by taking out a creative

license when marketing or advertising their product. An example is Burger King. They advertise

the Whopper and it looks amazing. Then you put it up against the real thing, side by side and

it’s not so amazing, it’s actually a sad comparison.

Is this false advertisement, creative license or is it OK? If you think about it, would the

consumer really want to see the pathetic burger and would it make them still want to go get

one? Probably not and as a matter of fact, any advertising that leads the consumer to make a

purchase based on false assumptions about the price and quality of competitive product is

considered deceptive practice and is punishable by law. And how many people will actually

take the time or the money to present these claims?

The responsibility of enforcing the laws dealing with unfair and deceptive advertising

comes under the jurisdiction of the FTC federal trade commission. But in order to establish that

an advertisement is false five things must be proven;

1.) A false statement of fact has been made about the advertiser’s own or another person’s

goods, services or commercial activity.

2.) The statement either deceives or has the potential to deceive a substantial portion of

it’s targeted audience.

3.) The deception is also likely to affect the purchasing decisions of it’s audience.

4.) The advertising involves goods or services in interstate commerce.

5.) The deception has either resulted in or is likely to result in injury.

The injury is usually money the consumer lost through a purchase that otherwise would

not have been made had the advertisement not been misleading. Yet the majority of people

never take it that far unless it’s serious and how difficult would it be to prove all five of these

proof requirements and would it be worth the consumers’ time or money? That is where the

federal trade commission comes into play as the governing authority against unfair and

deceptive acts or practices in commerce. Advertisers are held accountable for the messages

they produce, so too, are the manufacturers whom are held accountable for their products

meeting the standards set forth by advertisements. Once and advertised product is called out

for not living up to expectation, it tarnishes their brand image. The added fear of a lawsuit

pertaining to deceptive advertising along with penal laws which prohibit such dishonest

practices makes for an industry centered on truthful intent. Yet deceptive advertising is done

every day and they get away with it because it is assumed that most reasonable consumers

know a seller will exaggerate a bit. Look at the Axe commercials promising men that if you use

their product it “will” attract women. And too some degree yes that could be true “if” the

woman likes the scent but not because of anything in particular the product has to lure women.

They even go as far as having a graphic silhouette on some of their products depicting a man

with women surrounding him, not to mention how their ads portray women but that’s another

report all together. The one thing companies cannot do is advertise for example, that a product

will “cure cancer because there are no medical finds or proof that there is a cure for cancer. At

that point that is an obvious deception punishable by the law. Usually ads for reputable

companies almost never lie. The cost of being caught is simply too high. It can take years to

reverse such damage. Also to some degree the people inside the companies want to be able to

look at themselves in the mirror. Believe it or not business people do not belong to some weird

species that we are not familiar with and we will be them in a short time.

There have been many false advertising scandals that have cost brands millions of

dollars. Subway was one of those companies in the news lately that may be headed to court.

The infamous Subway foot-long sandwiches were coming up short. The controversy began

when a very precise customer ordered a foot-long and then pulled out a measuring tape to

measure the accuracy of the so called “foot-long” sub. He found that it was actually 11 inches

so he took his outrage to Facebook, where he posted a picture of the product, requested

answers from the company and demanded free subway for the rest of his life. He expected the

company to comply with his request otherwise he would sue them for False Advertisement. The

photo he posted on the social network immediately sparked an abundance of photos being

posted from other Facebook users where subs were being measured and coming up short, that

is less than 12 inches, which is what “foot-long” should measure; 12 inches is in a foot…

elementary school math. Franchise owners of Subways expressed to the media that the chain

had cut the portions of their cold cut meats by 25% and raised the cost of the food to each

individual store owner. Nevertheless, Subway attributes the discrepancy of the sub lengths to

the fact that each of the 38,000 stores freshly bake their own bread and because of this they

are unable to make sure each bread would come out of the oven measuring a perfect 12 inches.

They do say, however, that they are looking into this matter. As of right now, no legal actions

taken against this company have been reported. But unlike this situation, others have found

themselves facing the consequences for crossing the line. Volvo was also one of those

companies. At one of those monster truck rallies, the giant trucks squashed all the cars except

for a Volvo. Volvo’s ad agency had the bright idea that this idea would make for a great

commercial. But in order to make the ad, the film company had to shoot several takes. So they

reinforced the beams inside the car to withstand repeated hits by the monster truck. When the

press heard about this Volvo was exposed and the ad agency was fired and went out of

business. Was it worth the deceptive advertisement to lose everything? And in reality, Volvo

would stand up to one squashing by a monster truck. And, although the demonstration was

exaggerated, it did show truth. So it’s fair to say, major brands have had to pay up, facing

scrutiny from competitors. It’s fair to say, however, that most of the time these false

advertisement charges are brought on by the competitors. But in the case of Subway it is the

consumers that are tired and fighting back and with the social media making it easier every day

to reach so many people at once they can’t be stopped. And thanks to the internet the most

influential voices in advertising are the voices of the consumers.

So what can companies do to continue getting the advantage they are getting without

doing the unethical act of deceptive advertising? The truth is, ethics is personal. What you may

perceive as ethical someone else may not. True ethics requires more than being fair, honest

decent and using correct action. It requires owning up to the responsibility. If they can earn the

trust of consumers it would create brand loyalty and customers will keep coming back to a

company they can trust. They owe it to the consumer to be honest about what they are getting,

especially if the items or services could harm the consumers.

It is recommended that for a company to be more ethical they should not put down or

underestimate their competitor’s same products, they should not mislead the consumer by

providing false information, they should not hide the products side effects, and they should not

be ethically immoral. It takes a brave advertiser to go against what our culture is distorting and

present the truth. One such company that deserves commendation is Dove. Dove is succeeding

in challenging the conventional ideas of beauty that advertising help to create. They portray

real woman and convey the message that each woman has her own unique beauty.

In conclusion dishonest or deceptive ads hurt both consumers and

businesses. Most of us have been victims of false advertising at some point. Consumers are

cheated and businesses lose sales. For these reasons, both government and industry have taken

steps to make sure that advertising becomes more truthful and accurate. Regulations and

negative incentives are the primary tools used to discourage deceptive ads in the marketplace.

But there are limits to the effectiveness of these tools. There is no guarantee that all ads are

honest and true. The question is, will companies change their marketing policies or continue to

prioritize profits over the consumer’s right to know and welfare? For this reason, consumers

must be constantly on guard and keep a watchful eye out for what is being claimed by the

sellers in the marketplace. After all, it is better to be safe than sorry. The bottom line is

unethical ads have a bad effect on a company’s image as well as on the whole advertising

agency. Retailers, Auto makers, pharmaceutical company’s, food distributor’s and all

companies in general are responsible for being transparent and eliminate consumer confusion

thus must clearly practice truth and honesty in advertising.