Many companies and organizations around the world use marketing communication tools to create more awareness about the types of goods or services they offer to customers. This concept of marketing is viewed to be important as it helps the company achieve its marketing goals and objectives.
The tools of marketing communication that are commonly used by companies to market their products include sales promotions by offering coupons, samples and premium items, public relations by conducting media and press releases about the companies products, sponsorships, point of purchase communication and advertising which encompasses advertising through the media and through the Internet (Shimp 7).
All the marketing tools mentioned above make up the promotion component of the marketing mix which is composed of elements such as the product, price of the product, place and promotion.
Although many consumers view promotion as the most common term for conducting the communication and awareness of a product, marketing communication is the most preferable term for most researchers and practitioners in the marketing field.
The purpose of this study is to focus on the marketing communication tool of advertising and how this promotion tool might be viewed as means to distort the truth from the customer so as to sell more products or services.
Advertising
Advertising as well as the other forms of marketing communication are seen as a vital means of communicating about the product or service on offer between the marketers and consumers. Advertising is defined as a paid form of communication from a source such as the TV, radio, magazine, newspaper or the Internet to inform and persuade the receiver of the information take action by purchasing the product or service that is on offer.
The term paid in the above definition differentiates advertising from public relations which is another form of marketing communication that involves using sources such as the media for unpaid space or time to market the product.Apart from the media, advertising can be conducted by word of mouth, face to face interaction between the marketer and the consumer and by personal selling.
The main purpose of conducting advertising campaigns is to influence and convince the targeted audience to take action and change their behavior towards the company’s products or services (Shimp 182).
The major functions of advertising include informing, influencing, adding value, assisting the company’s efforts and reminding consumers about the company’s products or services. Informing involves creating awareness about the company’s products as well as publicizing the company’s brands to target consumers in the market.
Advertising informs consumers about new products as well as educate them on how the products function as well as teach them how the products are used. This type of advertising is know as usage expansion advertising examples of which include Campbell’s soup advert which publicized the soup as suitable for both family dinners and breakfast occasions (Shimp 188).
Apart from informing, advertising acts as an influencing agent that motivates consumers to try out the new brands on offer by the company. Customers are influenced to make a purchasing decision by sampling the product and also listening to the marketer’s explanation about the usefulness of the product. The reminding part of an advert is meant to keep the product in the customer’s mind.
This becomes important in the event a consumer needs a product with similar features. The influence of adverts that recur in the present and past make it possible for the consumer to remember the product.
The aspect of adding value in advertising is done by innovating, altering the customer’s perception about the product and improving the brand, its features and product specifications. These three value addition components are interdependent of each other as explained by the quote below:
‘Innovation without quality is mere novelty. Consumer perception without quality or innovation is viewed to be mere puffery while innovation and quality, if not translated into consumer perceptions, are like the sound of the proverbial tree falling in the empty forest.’ (Shimp 190)
Adding value ensures that companies can be able to generate brands that will see higher sales volumes, more revenues and higher profits for the company. Advertising evokes different responses from the customers who are targeted by the promotion effort.
Some of the responses that consumers get after being exposed to advertising include a change of behavior where the customer is persuaded by the marketer to buy a new product or service, the consumer is educated on new product possibilities, the marketer creates an emotional response for the product that is being marketed by create positive brand association.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Advertising
Advertising is seen as the most important tool of marketing a company’s products or services. Investing in advertising campaigns is therefore seen as an investment that will yield higher profits and higher returns as well as increase the number of customers a company has.
Some of the benefits of conducting advertising include improving the sale of the product since more people are now aware of the brand on offer, the attitudes and perceptions that customers have on the company’s products are changed in a positive way, there is an increase in employment as many people are needed in designing and developing the advert.
Advertising ensures that the company is able to progress economically by increasing the sales volumes and revenue of the company. It has also provided moral and religious benefits by creating adverts that communicate patriotic, faith and tolerance messages.
It also plays an important in contributing to the modern market economy by making sure the systems conform to the moral standards set by the society. Advertising is seen as a useful communication tool for sustaining honesty and ethical responsibility, integrity when it comes to dealing with competitors (Kapoor par. 1-8).
There have been critics who have viewed advertising as being negative especially with regards to the message that the advert is communicating to its intended audience. These critics have viewed advertising to have an impact on the viewers with regards to their state of mind and their past experiences with the company’s products or services.
Advertisements have been viewed to have a negative effect on young children and teenagers as this age group is more susceptible to the misleading information that is usually contained in some of the ads. Children are able to view whatever an ad relays as the truth and are convinced that the falsified information that is contained within the ad is the truth.
Pediatric research has shown that children who are younger than eight years are psychologically defenseless against adverts and advertising campaigns because they cannot understand the intention and purpose of the advert (Shifrin et al 2563).
Advertising has been viewed to be detrimental to children because their perceptions are easily manipulated. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) conducted an investigation in 2000 the results of which showed that violent movies, games and music were marketed with a particular focus on young children and adolescents.
The FTC decided to issue a ban on R rated content by preventing movie theaters from playing violent movies, games or music before movies that were G rated. Children however continue to view this content through other forms of media. G-rated movies designed for children also have advertisements for alcoholic beverages and cigarettes before the movie is aired (Shifrin et al 2564).
For example Coca Cola partnered with Warner Bros by paying $150 million for the company’s ads to be aired before the airing of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
There have also been the airings of tie in ads which have been viewed to be inappropriate to young children such as the World Wrestling Federation action figures which when pressed utter profanities. Such examples show that advertisers usually design their adverts to target children despite the contents of the advert bearing information for an older generation (Shifrin et al 2564).
Critics have argued that there has been an increase in cigarette and alcohol consumption after viewers have been exposed to ads that market these products (Platania par. 3 -4). Tobacco manufacturers spend about $30 million in a day which amounts to $11 billion in a year on tobacco advertisements and promotional campaigns while alcohol manufacturers spend close to $5.7 billion in a year on alcoholic advertisements.
FTC reports have shown that teenagers and children are exposed to 2,000 beer advertisements in one year. For example during prime time viewing hours, one alcoholic advertisement is aired after every four hours. Such large amounts of beer and wine adverts have been attributed to the increasing alcoholic consumption amongst teenagers.
Two longitudinal studies have attributed tobacco advertisements to one third of adolescents who smoke. Other studies have shown that young children who are exposed to cigarette adverts are likely to smoke in the later stages of their lives (Shifrin et al 2565).
The Impacts of Advertising: The Truth and Lies
In order to remain competitive, companies have had to reinvent their products and services to have an edge over their rivals. Many companies have designed adverts that promote their products to be more superior and better than those of the competitors by focusing on the functions of advertisements as well as on the aspect of appeal.
Each company has actively been involved in battling for the consumer’s attention which has seen the increase the scope of their advertising activities as well as cut throat competition when it comes to creating adverts that are more superior to those of competitors (Maitra par.2).
The cut throat competition has seen advertisers develop different measures that are used to attract the attention of the target audience. These measures at times might involve distorting the truth about the competitor’s products so that the company carrying the advertisement is seen to have more superior products and services.
The adverts might also distort the truth about the products features and what the product is capable of doing (Maitra par. 3). For example some automobile dealers have been known to distort the truth about some of the car models they sell in their auto marts by listing car specifications that are not present in the genuine car.
Most of these dealers who advertise their products through media such as the newspapers and the Internet list car features that are popular with consumers so that they can increase their sales and revenues. This misleads customers to buy their products based on the falsified information.
Most critics today view advertising to be deliberately misleading audiences by presenting information that is untrue. The issue of truth in advertisements is portrayed in a subtle way in that the contents of the advert do not portray false information but they basically distort the truth with factual information that is meant to discredit the competitor’s products (Berger et al 816).
For example a particular brand of bread in the US advertised that its bread had fewer calories per slice when compared to that of its competitors. While the information on the calories was true, the advert failed to inform the consumer that their bread slices were smaller than those of the competitor.
Apart from discrediting the competitor’s products, advertisements have been falsified so as to increase the sales volumes and improve profits. This is mostly common in industries that deal with the manufacture of food, cosmetics, and mobile network providers (Noland par. 6).
Most advertising campaigns lack information that is based on research and scientific studies. The content of the advert is usually based on the manufacturer’s instructions/ingredients or the features and qualities of the product. The advertiser therefore has to appeal to the consumer to change their perception and behavior towards the product.
Appeal is what is meant to influence the consumer to change their perception about the company’s product or services. Appeal can be in the form of rational and emotional appeal. Rational appeal focuses on presenting factual information about the products that are on offer by the organization.
The message in the advert contains truthful and factual information which is meant to appeal to the customer to purchase the product based on the information (Orwig par. 3-10).
Emotional appeal focuses on the feelings and responses of the target audience on the product or service that is being advertised. The message of the advert is focused on eliciting an emotional response from the consumer who is targeted.
For example British Airways has developed adverts for business and first class passengers by evoking a feeling of relaxation and comfort whenever they fly with British Airways. In order to appeal to customers on an emotional and rational level, advertisements have to incorporate information that is truthful and factual about the product or service that is on offer (Maira par.2).
Interviews on Advertising
Interviews were conducted on consumers and marketers to find out whether advertising distorted the truth about the type of products that were on offer by a company. Customers were asked whether they felt the adverts in the media and on the street distorted the truth about the brand that was on promotion. One interviewee remarked that adverts on TV generally contained information that was factually correct.
They also noted that for the information to be aired on TV or any other media outlet, it had to under go some verification procedures that would authenticate the truth of the advert’s content. The same interviewee also noted that advertisers conducted research on their target audience before they designed their adverts. He however noted that they preyed on people’ weaknesses but they did so in an honest and truthful way.
A second interviewee who worked for a marketing and advertising company remarked that the company had successfully conducted advertising promotions for products and services in the last 50 years of its operations without having to distort the truth about the brands in any way.
The interviewee noted that successful businesses such as the one he was working for did not need to distort the truth to increase their sales volumes and gain more customers. He noted that businesses needed to have a strong relationship marketing foundation that would see customers satisfied with the company’s brands and services while at the same time maintaining a loyalty with the company.
Also, customers who were satisfied with the products that a company offered were more than likely to tell their friends, families and colleagues about their experiences with these brands thereby increasing the company’s customer base. The third interviewee who was a general consumer also disagreed that advertisers distorted the truth to sell more products and services to the target market.
They termed such an action as false and deceptive advertising which would be bad for a business that wants to increase its sales and profits while at the same time increase its customer base. The interviewee noted that governments around the world had regulations that controlled falsified information and facts from being aired in media outlets.
To support these interviewee’s views Hansen and Law (3) talk about the “truth about advertising regulation” which arose from a movement that emerged in the early 20th century.
These movement known as the “truth in advertising movement” was made up of reformers in the retail, manufacturing and publishing industry who lobbied governments around the world to formulate legislation that would reduce the number of falsified adverts in the media.
The enacted truth about advertising regulation was meant to regulate the type of information in commercials and adverts. This regulation basically set the foundation for other regulations in the United States that were meant to deal with false information posed by advertisers in the media.
The regulation was enacted to deal with the pressure that emerged from the negative consequences of misleading adverts as well as pressure from the truth in advertising movement.
The various stakeholders in this group noted that adverts and commercials contained untruthful information that imposed a negative perception on the targeted audience which was mostly made of the average consumer, young children, teenagers and young adults.
False advertising was therefore viewed to be harmful to not only the consumer but to the business that aired the misleading adverts. The regulation was seen to be a mechanism that would ensure marketing and advertising firms improved their credibility (Hansen and Law 3).
A fourth interviewee viewed advertisements to be a nuisance as they kept interrupting her viewership of television programs that were on air. She stated that in the event she watched a commercial that advertised food, she did not believe the information and contents of the advert.
On further inquiry, the interviewee intimated that they had tried out a food product that was advertised to have fewer calories and high fibers to realize that the calorie content was falsified and the food had no fiber whatsoever. This made her have a negative image of the company that was advertising the food product and dented her image about food advertisements in general.
Another interviewee agreed that some adverts were misleading in terms of the adverts contents and the message that was being relayed to the target audience. The fifth interviewee remarked that companies sometimes exaggerated the features that their products had so as to get more sales and more revenue.
They leave out the negative aspects of the product intentionally so as to mislead the consumer to purchase the product. This is mostly evident in mobile phone and automobile adverts. The creators of the Apple 4GS are still marketing the product despite the phone having several defects in its antennae reception (RealCool Biz par. 1-2).
The sixth interviewee noted that most adverts did not display any truthful information especially when it came to the real cost of the good. He remarked that most advertisers gave out prices for products or services that were not real.
They did this because they wanted to recover the costs of developing and running the advert from the price that the consumer was going to pay for the product/service. The consumers are unaware that they are paying for the costs of advertising incurred by the advertiser and the company (RealCool. Biz par. 1-2)
Conclusion
The above analysis has shown that advertisements have both positive and negative consequences on the consumer’s perception about the company and its products that are on offer. The research has shown that customers base their purchase decisions on the information that is contained in an advertisement. What the advertiser puts in an advert is the main factor that will compel customers to go out and buy the product.
Companies and advertisers are therefore charged with the role of ensuring the information contained in the advert is truthful and not misleading. While some companies have used falsified information to gain a competitive edge, the long run sees this strategy to be detrimental to the company’s image in the event customers are dissatisfied with the products and services that are on offer by the company.
Works Cited
Berger, Jonah, Alan T. Sorensen and Scott J. Rasmussen, Positive effects of negative publicity: can negative reviews increase sales? Marketing Science, 29(5) pp. 815-827, 2010.
Hansen, Zeynep and Marc Law, Advertising regulation during the progressive era, Working Paper 11927, Cambridge, Massachusetts: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006.
Kapoor, C., Benefits of advertising. Web.
Maitra, Soumyamoy, Ethics in advertising, 2010, Web.
Noland, Jones, Marketing strategies. Web.
Platania, Vincent, The advantages and disadvantages of advertising. Web.
Orwig, Ken, Rational appeals vs. emotional appeals in advertising and marketing communication. Web.
Real Cool.Biz, The negative effects of advertising, 2008. Web.
Shimp, Terence A., Advertising promotion, and other aspects of integrated marketing communications, Mason US: South Western Cengage Learning, 2010.
Shifrin, Donald, Ari Brown, Bernard P. Dreyer, Kenneth R. Grinsburg, Regina M. Milteer, Kathleen G. Nelson and Deborah Ann Mulligan, Advertising regulation during the progressive era. Children, adolescents and television, Pediatrics Journal, 11(6): 2563-2569, 2006.