False Advertising

Advertising

In this day and age, advertisements(ads) have emerged as a powerful and important instrument for companies to reach out to and attract potential customers. Majority of advertisements contain persuasive information and details about a certain product or service, and advertisers often put forth the best selling point of these products or services to their customers. However, with advertisers being profit driven, do facts get twisted resulting in false or deceptive advertising?

In many instances, advertisements seem “too good to be true”, in order to capture the attention of the public, unfairly convincing them to purchase their products or service. Advertisements in the beauty industry are usually guilty of this.

Many a times, beauty ads make exaggerated claims pertaining to helping people lose unrealistic amounts of weight. Customers that buy in to such statements often end up complaining as the outcome of consuming the products or undergoing treatments were below their expectations that were made from the ads.

Food companies have been receiving complaints too. In past years, there were uproars with regards to fast food restaurants serving food that were of low standards and poorly plated when compared to pictures in the ads. Some people conducted research and tests on this issue. Results show that Macdonalds’ burgers were smaller in size as compared to the ads and the supposingly 12 inch foot long Subway sandwich appears to be 11 inch long in reality.

Although advertising plays a big role in helping companies achieve sales, one needs to understand that it also has great manipulative power to harm and deceive the public. Good advertisements should never over promise and under deliver.