The Advertisement Law - Coursework Example

Running Header: BUSINESS LAW Business Law Name Institution Introduction Business law, generally speaking is the regulations that govern how the business fraternity should conduct their relations in the business field. Business law is a wide field that controls the business world and gives direction on how business should be conducted in order to protect the different parties involved. These regulations are important to be put into consideration before setting up a business since they act as protective measures to both parties, that is, the business dealers and their clients. The laws protect the business people in different ways. First, they help one identify the kind of business to start, whether sole proprietorship, partnership or even corporations, and also determine the requirements of that kind of a business. The requirements include such factors as legal issues, number of owners, agreements among the owners and the legal documents required. The law also protects the business people through ensuring they get the right treatment from the government and other authorities, get proper deals from suppliers and other sources of their products and also help them acquire their requirements such as capital and financial intervention easily and in a genuine way. In addition, the laws help the businesses maintain a good culture through provision of quality products and services as well as controlling competition in the market so as to avoid unfair competition (Gibson & Fraser, 2011). Business law also helps the business clients in different ways. First, the laws ensure customers are protected from exploitation by business people through ensuring they get the right quality of goods and services at legally accepted prices, gaining access to the right warranties and guarantees for the products they purchase from different business and even ensuring they get proper treatment from the business people. This ensures that the customers of a business are always protected and their interests are always the main focus of the business law. Most of these laws that govern the business world are aimed at ensuring that businesses are operated in a legal manner and that they fulfill the purpose for which they were intended. They also ensure that the businesses apply the right methods and techniques of attracting the customers, increasing competition and also managing the different affairs and processes of the business including the management structures, employment structures, product processing and sales and the general conduct of the employees in the business towards the customers in its market. The business law therefore includes regulations on the way advertisements and sales are conducted within the business, as is the case in our case study (Gibson & Fraser, 2011). Due to the stiff competition in the business world, there are all kinds of ideas that come by so as to be at the top through increasing competition by advertising and attracting potential customers. Therefore some of the advertisements made are enticing and full of different claims and conclusions about the products being advertised. However, some of these advertisements are not accurate and genuine and hence are quite misleading and sometimes result to very serious and even harmful consequences when customers follow them to the letter. These advertisements are just done as a way of attracting more customers but don’t consider the harm it would cause to them if the products don’t serve their purposes or mislead in the way the products are utilized (Gibson & Fraser, 2011). The Advertisement Law The advertisement laws are laws that have been put into place with the aim of ensuring sanity, relevance, authenticity and even reliability in all the advertisements made by different companies using different techniques of advertising. They usually consider such factors as the time at which the ads are used or broadcasted, their placement and even their overall content. They are usually used so as to protect the potential clients of the company or even any other viewers from exploitation and consumption of false information which may mislead the viewers in different ways. These laws are usually established and enhanced by local authorities or even the government. These laws hence take into consideration the many issues associated to the ads created by different organizations and determine if they should be dispersed to the community. There are very many issues that are related to the advertisement sector, ranging from legal, and religious to cultural and personal issues. All these issues are very sensitive to the business and may result to very adverse consequences when the business is confronted with any of them and fails to defend itself successfully. They may lead to loss of a lot of finances in form of compensation and fines or even to loss of the organizational image and the power of the brand name of the organization. Worse still, they may lead to the loss of the competitive advantage of the organization gradually reducing the returns to the organization and resulting to lowered productivity or even closure of the company (Gibson & Fraser, 2011). There are different personal issues that are put into consideration when formulating an advertisement. One of the issues is the taste and preferences of the targeted viewers. The advertisements have to consider the reactions and views of the customers before they are launched so as to ensure the intended message reaches the targeted viewers. Any deviation from this factor may result to poor reception, misunderstanding of the ad or even irritation which may stir a lot of trouble for the company or even taint the image of the company. Other personal factors to be considered include the age composition of the viewers, gender sensitivity of the ad and the trends associated to the target population. The different cultural factors to be considered include language, social practices and activities, taboos, myths and beliefs and even the interactions between societies and embracing of modern trends. Any ad should adhere to these factors so as to be acceptable, relevant and informative and at the same time avoid offending viewers or causing social unrest. There are many religious factors that should be put into consideration when formulating an advertisement. These factors include the type of religion practiced by the target group and the different beliefs enclosed within such an advertisement. Failure to adhere to these factors may leave the company at a very subtle situation as it could result to public unrest, harsh reaction from the general public, lack of acceptance or even taking of legal actions by the viewers against the company, an occurrence that may result to loss of the company image as well as reduced returns (Gibson & Fraser, 2011). The legal factors to be considered in designing an advertisement includes freedom of speech, media and techniques used for advertisements, privacy policies as well as the marketing strategies used. The government regulates the kind of language used ensuring that it is not provocative to the targeted audience and that the message used in the ad is suit for every age bracket. Different companies use different means of transmission for their ads, and therefore there are regulations that measure the kind of content that gets transmitted. The ads also have to consider the privacy of the content being relayed and ensure that only the intended viewers capture the message. Since there are different modes and media that may be used for transfer of information, advertisements should comply with the legal requirements associated to these media since there are different restrictions and requirements for each one of them. In addition, there are different factors that must be considered in use of different marketing strategies so as to ensure that the strategies chosen by a company are consistent with the legal requirements associated to them (Gibson & Fraser, 2011). The Case Study From the given case study, Beth used a mode of advertisement that was bound to attract a lot of customers to her shop. Through Beth’s advert which was using a given marketing strategy, she was able to capture the attention of many customers since she was giving a good offer. Therefore the customers could purchase as many blouses as they could but there was no binding contract in that advertisement. Therefore, when Beth refused to sell to her more blouses, the customer’s complaints and arguments were wrong as they did not have a good base considering the ad Beth used. This is because there was nothing in the advert that gave an ultimatum that the sale should be cleared and also Beth could sell to any customer at her own dispensation and without anyone trying to pull her into the sale. The ad was hence not in a format that allowed any binding contract to be derived from it and hence her choice not to sell to her competitor was legally binding. However, the case would have been different if Beth stated in the advertisement the number of blouses available and if all the stock must be sold and cleared. It did not give room for any restrictions on the potential customers and hence anyone could purchase the products. Hence, there are a lot of factors that are observed pertaining to the business law and the way business ought to be conducted. The ‘customer’ who claims that there was a binding contract between her and Beth would have actually been right. It gave an ultimatum of which the customers had a right to adhere to. The customers could buy as many blouses as they could so long as Beth wanted all the stock sold and cleared. The advertisement did not limit the clients from buying many blouses or the kind of clients who were supposed to purchase from Beth’s shop. As e have stated in the advertisement laws, the client should be protected from the misleading ad, since she is entitled to buying many blouse as she can as long as the advertisement is there (Gibson & Fraser, 2011). Based on the latter advertisement indicating ‘100 genuine Thai Silk blouses going cheap,’ if the blouses were actually not genuine and were just a cheap ‘knock-offs’ from Vietnam, then Beth could have committed an advertisement crime through forfeiting an advertisement law that dictated that all the claims in an ad had to be very accurate in its claims and needed to explain the exact nature of the products being sold without exaggeration or use of false claims which could have caused the customers to buy products that were adulterated and which could not meet their needs or expectations. Hence, any claims that the blouses were of any king while they were different could have resulted to commitment of a crime against the business law. On the other side, an advertisement indicating ‘100 genuine Thai Silk blouses going cheap,’ while there were no such items in the shop but used as a strategy to attract customers with hopes that they could buy other products in the shop could not have stood as an illegal activity considering the business law. The blouses could have been available earlier but ran out of stock later after being sold out. Therefore it would not be an illegal activity since that would also give the customers a chance to buy other products available in that specific shop hence Beth could still use that ad as a marketing strategy (Gibson & Fraser, 2011). Conclusion These laws enclosed within the business are usually aimed at ensuring that the interests of the buyers of a product as well as organizations dealing with the production and sale of different products in the market. The laws ensure that these parties in the business world are both protected and that they also follow the right procedures and the legal requirements in their operations. Business laws branch into different categories, one of which is advertisements. The advertisements laws are used to protect viewers and consumers of information from wrong, false or even toxic advertisements while on the other side protecting the organizations using the advertisements from exploitation by clients with wrong motives. Hence, these advertisement laws control the nature of advertisements used and also ensure that all the involved parties benefit from use of the ads. Reference Gibson, A., & Fraser, D. (2011). Business Law (5th Ed.). New York: Pearson. Read More