Legal Manipulation in Advertising

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Table of Contents

Abstract
Main
The Brief History of Advertising
Types of Advertisements
The Purpose of Advertisements
Negative Effects of Advertisements
Conclusion
References

Abstract

Advertisements as announcements of new products and services and as informative messages used by marketers to make the target audience become aware of different products are popular not only in the Western world but also in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

In spite of the fact that advertisements are effective tools to promote products and services and influence the consumer’s purchasing behavior, many pieces of research research demonstrate that advertisements are highly manipulative in their nature because they create unneeded necessities for customers, influence their attitudes to the advertised products, and affect changes in the buyers’ visions.

From this point, advertisements have positive effects on marketing, but they often have negative effects on consumers because of influencing their choices while manipulating emotions and values. The purpose of this research is to discuss actively used types of advertisements and focus on manipulative techniques that have negative effects on consumers.

Main

The situation of the active competition in different industries and markets creates the necessity to focus on advertising products and services effectively in order to attract more consumers.

From this point, it is possible to define advertisements as messages presented in different forms that are developed by advertisers and marketers in order to inform the public about the new product, to announce the new service, and to persuade consumers to purchase the presented products and services (Ansari & Joloudar, 2011, p. 175; Obermiller & Sawyer, 2011, p. 101). However, advertisements are used not only to make the public become aware of the product but also to stimulate consumers to act in a certain way.

The problem is in the fact that such manipulation has negative effects on consumers, and it is rather difficult to control the impact of advertising on the audience because of its legal character (Ansari & Joloudar, 2011, p. 176; Danciu, 2014, p. 22). Thus, it is important to discuss what techniques for influencing consumers’ purchasing behavior are used in modern advertisements.

The research in this field is significant because, in spite of the fact that this problem was previously characteristic for the developed Western societies where the ideas of consumerism were promoted, today manipulation in advertisements also became the problem for the Arab world and for the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in particular.

Although advertising is an effective tool for marketing, it has negative effects on the public because of the presence of manipulative techniques in advertisements. Therefore, the aim of this research is to discuss the history of advertising, types of advertisements, and the purpose of advertisements in order to conclude the source of advertisements’ negative effects on the public.

The Brief History of Advertising

The appearance of first advertisements is associated with the development of different media, such as newspapers, radio, and television. In the United States, the first advertisements appeared in newspapers during the late part of the 19th century. Later, advertisements in the Western countries appeared not only in newspapers, but they were also broadcasted with the help of radio.

The 20th century became the era of the TV advertisements, and the 21st century is associated with advertisements in the Internet and advertisements shared with the help of mobile devices (Kalliny, Dagher, Minor, & Santos, 2008, p. 215; Obermiller & Sawyer, 2011, p. 102).

According to Professor Kalliny and the group of the American researchers who specialize in comparing advertisements in the United States and Arab countries, the first advertisements in the Western and Arab countries were informative in their nature, and the level of manipulation was rather low (Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 215-216). Furthermore, advertisements typical for the 20th century were ideologically supported and developed with the focus on certain cultural contexts.

The progress of advertising in the Arab world is directly associated with the progress of different types of media in the middle part of the 20th century. The evolution of advertising in the Arab countries from advertisements for informing to advertisements for manipulating the consumer’s purchasing behavior can be discussed as quick because of the general progress of the social and economic life.

Professor Kalliny and the group researchers state that several decades ago, the Arabic society did not discuss advertisements as influential tools to change their consumer’s choice because the Arabs focused on family members and friends’ feedbacks regarding different products and services (Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 220). However, the situation has changed significantly, and today many cues are used in advertisements in order to influence the Arab consumers individually, with the focus on the active use of satellite television.

Types of Advertisements

Advertisements are tools that are used in marketing in order to persuade consumers to act in a way beneficial for producers and advertisers. When advertisers focus on persuading the audience to purchase the product, they manipulate the consumers’ vision of their needs, and different types of advertisements serve to promote various products depending on advertisers’ needs.

According to Kaur and the group of Malaysian researchers, “advertisements reach out to consumers through various media such as the Internet, radio, television, magazines, and newspapers. In order to ensure that advertisements are able to reach the target group, advertisers need to select the right medium” (Kaur, Arumugam, & Yunus, 2013, p. 61).

From this point, it is possible to classify advertisements according to the medium through which advertisers promote their messages. The choice of the type of advertisement according to the medium influences the overall effectiveness of the advertisement.

In the Arab world, newspapers and TV advertisements are most popular because they are easily accessible, and these advertisements are more informative in comparison with advertisements on the Internet and in magazines. According to the results of the Arab Advisors Group survey conducted in 2005 and cited by Barkho, a specialist in Media Management, “89% of households in Saudi Arabia watch satellite television” (Barkho, 2007, p. 11).

It is possible to assume that these numbers have increased as a result of the development of the advertising industry in GCC countries. Moreover, advertisers choose newspaper advertisements and TV advertisements in order to promote such imported products as electronics, cosmetics, and goods for leisure and entertainment in the Arab world with the focus on cultural idioms and social realities (Barkho, 2007, p. 12; Epps & Demangeot, 2013, p. 309).

As a result, a large number of consumers in the GCC countries become attracted by the effectively developed newspaper and TV advertisements.

The Purpose of Advertisements

The primary purpose of advertisements is to inform potential consumers about the new product or service. However, a good advertisement should not only inform the public but also create the need, change the vision of the product, and influence the attitude while providing arguments for the purchase.

Janssens and De Pelsmacker, Professors of Marketing, state that the effectiveness of an advertisement depends on the presence of positive emotional appeals in it and on the presence of “features, practical details and verifiable, factually relevant cues that can serve as evaluative criteria” for consumers selecting a product among many different offers (Janssens & De Pelsmacker, 2005, p. 114).

Following the idea of Epps and Demangeot, Professors of Marketing in Dubai, it is also important to note that advertisers and marketers are also responsible for creating certain desires and needs in customers in order to promote their product to the target audience (Epps & Demangeot, 2013, p. 308). From this point, the purpose of advertisements is to respond to the customers’ needs while proposing them a product that is appropriate to satisfy their desires; and the selection of a product depends on the persuasiveness of the advertisement.

It is also important to focus on such positive effects of advertisements as the creation of a positive image of the product, improvement of the producer’s reputation, and increases in sales. According to Victor Danciu, the Romanian researcher in the field of marketing, advertisements create the positive image of the product because of professionals in the sphere present objects in the best light, while using rhetoric appeals in texts and vivid colors in visuals (Danciu, 2014, p. 21).

Furthermore, the reference to the statistical information and surveys in advertisements is helpful to improve the company’s reputation as the producer of high-quality or distinguished products (Kaur et al., p. 62). Finally, significant increases in sales are the direct results of the consumers’ awareness of the product’s advantages accentuated ineffective advertisements.

Negative Effects of Advertisements

In spite of the fact that advertisements are traditionally used to inform the audience about new products and services, advertisements as the powerful marketing tools can also have negative effects on the public because of the use of manipulative techniques and a range of stimuli. It is possible to determine different approaches used in advertising in order to manipulate customers and influence their decision-making process.

These manipulation techniques are grounded on the theories of the psychological impact and methods of effective communication (Danciu, 2014, p. 20). Thus, following Maslow’s theory regarding the people’s needs and values, it is possible to determine the utilitarian values associated with physiological needs such as food and clothing and hedonic values associated with achieving fun and joy (Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 219).

From this point, advertisements can inform customers about the products to satisfy their basic needs or hedonic interests. The advertisements popular in the GCC countries can correspond with both types in spite of the fact that researchers often assume that the promotion of hedonic values is not associated with advertising in the Arab world (Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 219-220).

Therefore, manipulation techniques used in advertisements typical for the Western world are also used in many advertisements popular in the GCC countries (Epps & Demangeot, 2013, p. 309). From this perspective, advertisements manipulate customers while using deceptive facts, persuading or creating unneeded necessities, using exaggeration, and focusing on emotions. It is also possible to identify the negative effects of advertisements on consumers’ behavior while referring to the linguistic impact and visual impact on the customers.

Deceitful advertisements have significant negative effects on customers because the audience orients to misleading or false facts and chooses improper or low-quality products. For instance, advertisements in the UAE provide little information regarding products and services, and this tradition allows advertisers to hide significant facts about the product that can prevent their popularity among the public (Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 220).

Advertisements also have negative effects on customers when unneeded necessities are created, and customers are persuaded to buy products or services they really do not need. This situation is the most vivid example of the manipulation associated with advertising. According to Kaur and the group of researchers, competition in “attracting potential customers has forced advertisers to employ vigorous advertising strategies techniques such as, construct a problem that can only be solved by using their products” (Kaur et al., 2013, p. 61).

Referring to advertisements in the GCC countries, it is possible to state that the women in the UAE are more affected by advertisements that demonstrate the advantages of the free or independent choice than the women in other Arab countries because of the focus of the UAE’s society on expanding possibilities for women to receive education and obtain positions in the business world (Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 218-219). Advertisers use these tendencies to manipulate the public’s vision of cultural and social changes and create new necessities.

The other group of advertisements having negative effects on the audience includes advertisements that use exaggeration or emotional appeals. Exaggeration in advertisements can be discussed as a kind of lying and as the indirect manipulation because customers are attracted by exaggeration of the products’ quality or size. For instance, advertisers demonstrate certain qualities of the product as exaggerated and higher in comparison with the other products of that type (Janssens & De Pelsmacker, 2005, p. 114).

The focus on false statistics is also one of the methods to accentuate the products’ unique qualities (Danciu, 2014, p. 22). The associated type of manipulation is the presentation of changed facts regarding the price. Although the price is often not mentioned in the advertisements popular in the GCC countries, advertisers find indirect ways to draw the potential customers’ attention to the possibility of buying the product that costs less but has a higher quality (Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 220).

The emotional appeal is the other technique that is used to manipulate the customers’ vision of the advertised product. In the UAE and Saudi Arabia, many advertisements represent the pictures of families, accentuate the role of traditions, and appeal to the public’s cultural and ethnic identity (Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 219). As a result, these advertisements manipulate the consumer’s choosing behavior while focusing on the emotive persuasion.

It is possible to state that customers in the Arab countries are more likely to use services and purchase products of companies that support tradition and demonstrate their ideology in advertisements (Barkho, 2007, p. 10). The problem is in the fact that the real quality of such effectively promoted products can be rather questionable. Much attention should be paid to advertisements in which the main focus is on traditional methods followed to make modern products.

These types of advertisements are popular in the GCC countries because of the particular features of the culture, but these advertisements can often mislead consumers while providing the deceitful or inaccurate information (Barkho, 2007, p. 10; Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 220). Therefore, manipulation in advertisements can be presented in many forms, and it is based on a good knowledge of the consumer’s purchasing behavior.

The consumer’s purchasing behavior depends on many personal, social, and cultural factors. These factors are taken into consideration when advertisers choose techniques to produce linguistic impact or the visual impact on consumers. The linguistic impact on consumers is produced when advertisers accentuate certain words and meanings and put these words in properly developed syntactical constructions, allowing definite variants of interpretation (Danciu, 2014, p. 24).

In this case, both vocabulary and constructions are meant to create a certain image and persuade the public with the help of claims. The cultural and ideological factors are important to produce the expected effect on the audience with the help of the word choice (Danciu, 2014, p. 25; Kaur et al., p. 70).

The visual impact is also important to create the image of the product because advertisers use photoshop to exaggerate the products’ qualities and sizes and to mislead the public regarding the expected effects of using this or that product or service (Kaur et al., p. 70).

Furthermore, the pictures of the happy life and proclamation of the role of hedonic values in advertisements are also manipulative images that are presented in the advertisements popular in the UAE and other Arab countries (Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 220). From this point, TV advertisements combine linguistic and visual impact, and they provoke the most active consumer’s purchasing behavior because of influencing the person’s vision.

From this point, advertisements often have negative effects on the public because manipulative techniques used in them allow advertisers to control the consumer’s purchasing behavior and create unneeded necessities. For instance, advertisements demonstrating new products for young females in the Arab world often use images that can be discussed as the opposition between the traditional vision of the female beauty and the modern global standards (Kalliny et al., 2011, p. 220).

Linguistic messages are usually reinforced by visual messages. These advertisements are highly manipulative, and they are focused on creating false needs (Ansari & Joloudar, 2011, p. 176). Furthermore, it is difficult to control manipulation in advertisements and use regulations because of difficulties associated with proving the fact of manipulation.

Conclusion

Advertisements can have both positive and negative effects. In the sphere of marketing, advertisements are necessary to inform the public about products and services available for them. However, the problem is in the fact that the sphere of advertising has developed significantly, and today advertisements can be discussed as powerful tools that can be used in order to manipulate the consumers’ visions and attitudes.

Modern advertisements not only inform and remind, but they also persuade consumers, influence their purchasing behavior, create new needs, and affect desires. Advertisers use many manipulative techniques in order to achieve the goal of the effective promotion of the product. Still, these techniques make consumers dependent on advertisements in relation to the decision-making process and choice in markets.

As a result, consumers are affected emotionally, and advertisements make them follow false visions and change opinions and attitudes presented in the message. Consumers in the GCC countries are also vulnerable in relation to the advertisements’ impact because of the active growth of the popularity of advertisements among the Arab population. These changes are associated with the advertisers’ use of special cultural and ideological cues that are effective to attract the consumers’ attention to the promoted products.

References

Ansari, M., & Joloudar, S. (2011). An investigation of TV advertisement effects on customers’ purchasing and their satisfaction. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 3(4), 175-181.

Barkho, L. (2007). Advertising resources in oil rich Arab Gulf states – Implications for international marketers. International Journal of Business Studies, 15(2), 1-24.

Danciu, V. (2014). Manipulative marketing: persuasion and manipulation of the consumer through advertising. Theoretical & Applied Economics, 21(2), 19-34.

Epps, A., & Demangeot, C. (2013). The rainbow of diversity versus the rain of fragmentation: the futures of multicultural marketing in the UAE. Foresight: the Journal of Futures Studies, Strategic Thinking and Policy, 15(4), 307-320.

Janssens, W., & De Pelsmacker, P. (2005). Advertising for new and existing brands: The impact of media context and type of advertisement. Journal of Marketing Communications, 11(2), 113-128.

Kalliny, M., Dagher, G., Minor, M., & Santos, G. (2008). Television advertising in the Arab world: A status report. Journal of Advertising Research, 48(2), 215-223.

Kaur, K., Arumugam, N., & Yunus, N. (2013). Beauty product advertisements: A critical discourse analysis. Asian Social Science, 9(3), 61-71.

Obermiller, C., & Sawyer, A. (2011). The effects of advertisement picture likeability on information search and brand choice. Marketing Letters, 22(2), 101-113.

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