Do you think advertising is always deceptive Can you ever trust an ad - Research Paper Example

Is advertising deceptive? Advertising is viewed as deceptive if the consumer or the will be misled by what the advert arrogates. This advert will seem to be based on factual evidence while in the actual sense it is not. This kind of advert always employs the use of exaggerations and wispy generalities (Cross, 2007).Some advertisements don’t disclose the whole information. In essence, the presented information may be true but not complete. This will in fact mislead customers into fictitious conclusion (cross, 2007).

This makes it hard for someone to wholly believe the adverts.Some company products may use a celebrity in their adverts. This endorsement then proves to be deceptive as the celebrity may not be using the products. The use of the celebrity is just a thing to lure the consumers into buying the products (Cross, 2007). With this, then my trust in advertisements is withdrawn and hardly can I trust the ads.Trust refers to the reliance on an entity or a person. Trust in this context refers to the reliance on the ability, quality and quantity of the product or service being advertised.

A consumer may withdraw his or her trust from the adverts due to the deceptive adverts by the companies (Babin, 2010).Most companies may manipulate the measuring standards and units. This means that the product will be different in quantity and measurement. This can be shown by a company that deals with measurable items such as fluids and measurable solid materials. The company could state that products are packed in a liter bottle but in real sense the fluids could be less by some milliliters.

The same case applies to the solid measurable items which may be deficient by a few milligrams. This then makes the consumers have little trust in the ads and so do I (Cross, 2007).These companies may also give misleading illustrations through indications of additional ingredients in the products more than ones used. This then gives wrong information about the product and the consumer unknowingly uses the product which later does not give the desired satisfaction (Babin, 2010).Some of these adverts may claim that there is no risk of using the product and that the company will refund you if not satisfied.

This claim seems very false as the company may not even refund you the money. Some other companies may employ bait and switch where they advertise unavailable products then when the consumer comes to purchase, he or she is given a different product of a higher value. This makes consumers have little faith in the advertisements and neither can I believe nor trust the advertisements. The consumers can only trust such an advert if only they had stipulated that there are limited products in stock (Cross, 2007).

Though there are various government regulations which are in place to protect the consumers, most of the businesses prefer self regulatory bodies. These self regulatory bodies ensure that the advertising exercises are truthful and that the regulations are adhered to (Babin, 2010). It may seem very difficult to distinguish between deceptive advertisement and puffery. Puffery refers to making exaggerated claims about a product and its superiority. This may prove to be tricky to distinguish between the two as there is no open effort by the company to deceive the consumers in the in puffery (Babin, 2010).

Puffery includes the use of such word as ‘the best available product’, ‘the best food in town’. All these claims will need to be supported as stipulated in the regulations acts. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a blurry line between puffery and deceptive advertising (Babin, 2010).ReferencesCross B. F. (2007). West’s Legal Environment of Business: Text and Cases: Ethical, Regulatory, International, and E-commerce Issues. Cengage Learning.Babin J. B. & Harris E. 2010. Cb2.

Cengage Learning.