Predatorial Advertising

Started by Alexander Nicholi January 23rd, 2014 9:07 PM
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  • 15 replies

Alexander Nicholi

work hard, play hard

Age 25
Male
Research Triangle / Jakarta
Seen February 15th, 2023
Posted March 5th, 2021
5,498 posts
13.5 Years
In many capitalist countries, and particularly in the United States, exitus acta probat is the end-all-be-all when it comes to marketing products. If you don't know what that means, just understand that such backwards forms of capitalism allow the means of achieving the financial bottom line to become ruthless. What do you think of such actions? Should they be expanded, reduced, or outright removed?

I'll give an example, of which I encountered today at my local convenience store:


Do you see what is wrong with this picture? If you're not able to see the deception, let me explain it piece by piece.

First, let's look at the big letters in bold. This statement is utterly meaningless. Corporations are hardly ever legally liable for anything opinionated they say, making this sentence merely fodder for consumers to garner a false, self-generated impression from. Also, even if this could possibly be interpreted as a solid statement, guess again - it's quoted. Not only that, but it's an unsourced quote - how could they be liable for some unsourced quotation? They could easily disown it in a heartbeat.

Second, there's the promises. The sign says that you can save up to $1 a gallon on gasoline. And you'll save just that - up to. Keep in mind that restrictions apply, and you'll have to talk to the high school dropout at the register for info, provided they know a damn thing about what you're asking.



How fair is that?
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Ultramarine

Turn the tables

Age 24
Male
Illinois, USA
Seen October 12th, 2014
Posted October 10th, 2014
148 posts
9.5 Years
Oh advertising. See, I hope to bring some decency back to advertising, be the Messiah of Advertising, if you will.
Yes, advertisements are supposed to be persuasive, but there is so much fluff on top of the important information (in tiny print of course), it's ridiculous. You don't need to tell it like it is, or most products wouldn't sell nearly as well, but there's a difference between presenting your product in a positive light and trying to make people believe it's the best thing since toilet paper while cramming the negative information into the nooks and crannys to hide it.

I'm not all to knowledgable on this subject as of now though, so I apologise in advance.

Kanzler

naughty biscotti

Male
Toronto
Seen April 22nd, 2022
Posted March 11th, 2022
5,957 posts
14.8 Years
How do we define deception?

I think companies will go to very great lengths to make their products look good, and that's putting it politely.

Unfortunately, a lot of advertisement consists of appealing to emotion. Inherent in that is saying things that make no logical sense. I believe in government's role in protecting its citizens, and even from their own stupidity, but I think all it should do with regards to regulating advertising is making sure companies are accountable for what they say or don't say. Again, how do we define accountable?

Acid test: is this going too far? From my own experiences, I say no. There's a lot worse.

Second, there's the promises. The sign says that you can save up to $1 a gallon on gasoline. And you'll save just that - up to. Keep in mind that restrictions apply, and you'll have to talk to the high school dropout at the register for info, provided they know a damn thing about what you're asking.
This resonates with me. I used to work retail, and I did make mistakes in the beginning. That did lost me sales. But the exchange was honest - if I miscommunicated the policy or the deal, then I don't deserve the sale. I would like to think that these issues are handled by getting everything cleared up (with a manager if needs be) honestly, because word of mouth is unaccountable, and unscrupulous sales reps can lie. But we can't regulate what people say or don't say, so an honour policy is the best we have to work with.
I'm going to be a social darwinist here and say that if you fall for that one, you kind of deserve it. I don't believe government should regulate stuff like this; they should be like any good teacher...let people make mistakes and let them learn from it, just like we make people do with pretty much everything else in life.

The concept of saving a trivial amount of pocket change on gas is just stupid, because that's all you're saving...pocket change.

Kanzler

naughty biscotti

Male
Toronto
Seen April 22nd, 2022
Posted March 11th, 2022
5,957 posts
14.8 Years
While we're on this topic, I think there should be stricter regulations for pharmaceutical marketing vis a vis other products. I don't really have a legal argument for it, but there's just such a huge knowledge gap between the companies and consumers and the products are often a life and death matter. Pharmaceuticals are one of the few products whose advertising regulations should be tightened by the government. Otherwise, consumer protection should be equal parts regulation and education.
Well, the FDA already regulates advertising for prescription drugs and the FTC regulates advertising for over-the-counters. However, the FDA is not required to review all ads before they are revealed to the public, so there's the problem of the possibility of false advertising for a drug that might do more harm than good. I'm optimistic about companies not deliberately selling bad drugs, because if they got found out it would mean bad business for them and lost sales and you'd have to be an idiot to risk that, but people who run companies are human too and are therefore no less able to make stupid mistakes. There's also the matter that federal law does not ban ads for drugs that cause serious injury.

The commercial Team Fail showed follows what I think should be encouraged standard; advertise to make the product known, but also notify of any risks and recommend speaking to a doctor first.

I may support capitalism and limited government, but I also support principalism. Medicinal drugs are one of the few things I'm on the fence about supporting some regulations of, mainly because deliberately selling medical drugs that cause more harm than good can be perceived as violating the principle of non-maleficence. On the other hand, this same argument...whether drugs do more harm than good...may be used to justify banning drugs that are perceived as bad, whether or not they actually are (e.g. Marijuana) and the War On Drugs puts enough people in prison already (some of them harmless). Again, I'm not a fan of statistism and I don't approve of overbearing state coercion, but there has to be a way of encouraging standards. Peaceful protest and voluntary education systems are two I can think of.

Source: http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/PrescriptionDrugAdvertising/UCM076768.htm#control_advertisements

Kanzler

naughty biscotti

Male
Toronto
Seen April 22nd, 2022
Posted March 11th, 2022
5,957 posts
14.8 Years
Oh, when I made that last post, I meant it as looking inside at the United States, as a Canadian. In Canada, direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription only drugs are illegal. I think it should stay that way, and in fact, I think it should be the standard worldwide.

Pharmaceutical products are a unique category of products not only because its consumers lack market information, but also for the separate but related reason that it would be inappropriate for emotions to take any part in making a choice of which drug one takes. If you're buying a car, it's reasonable to pick for emotional reasons - the colour, the form, even whether you "just like it" or not. Same goes for electronic products, certain products have brand value or an aesthetic edge and there's nothing wrong with going with preferences.

Do personal preferences exist for drugs? I argue it doesn't. The only factor that should affect one's decision when choosing a drug is how likely that drug will contribute to their health. If the patient is unable to judge between products, then it should be the doctor's decision to make. If the patient is attempting to make a decision for their medication outside of that one criteria - how likely the drug will contribute to their health, then I see that as a problem. The decision will be affected by the patient's emotions (given advertising), which in no way reflects how the product will be used, leading to the choice of drugs taken and all other market activities that stem from this to be inefficient.

In a perfect market, one of the conditions is perfect market information. Advertising in pharmaceuticals inserts the influence of emotion into a decision that would otherwise be rational, and I consider that a distortion of the market through misinformation. Patients will be consuming their drugs inefficiently - leading to market resources being allocated inefficiently (towards those who advertise more) instead of towards the companies which bring the most value to the marketplace.

As I've said before, pharmaceuticals are an interesting market because it is highly improbable for the consumers to have good market information - awareness of the products, ability to compare between products other than price. Fortunately, we have doctors to fill that information gap. However, since advertisement appeals to emotions far more than they educate the consumer, they skew the ability for the consumers to make rational decisions. If the government does not step in and regulate, the companies will distort the market when left to their own. Pharmaceuticals is but one case, sometimes you need government authority and intervention to make markets function efficiently. Advertising doesn't always contribute to more information, and in this case, I argue it actually undermines information.

So far we've discussed moral reasons for regulating advertising, but I've made the case that there is an economic reason as well. Of course, the amount of regulation would differ product-to-product.

tl;dr i support government regulation of advertising in the pharmaceutical industry because 95% of the population does not have a bio/med degree. if government intervention can run a market more efficient than it can run itself, by all means, go for it.

Kanzler

naughty biscotti

Male
Toronto
Seen April 22nd, 2022
Posted March 11th, 2022
5,957 posts
14.8 Years
I was responding to Carcharodin over pharmaceuticals, but yeah I agree with you. As Canadians we have the innate ability to look at other countries as outsiders (which is ever so strengthened when our own country is small and lacks voice in the greater scheme of things).

Alexander Nicholi

work hard, play hard

Age 25
Male
Research Triangle / Jakarta
Seen February 15th, 2023
Posted March 5th, 2021
5,498 posts
13.5 Years
I had never thought about pharmaceutical advertisements like that until now. I honestly thought they were regulated :o

I will bring up something else regarding advertisements, though – namely food. Yes, the lifeblood of human consumption. Take a look at this 2013 Despicable Me 2 McDonald's advertisement.



I'm going to set aside everything but the following quote, for sake of time.

“Milk is good for you.”

I'm going to go ahead and summarize this page, just so you guys don't have to dig. You can if you want to, though.
  1. Most cow's milk contains substantial amounts of: 200 times the safe levels of herbicides, pesticides, and dioxins; 52 powerful antibiotics; garbage such as blood, feces, urine, and bacteria; and also radioactive isotopes from the strontium-90 problem in the 1950s.
  2. Cow's milk contains a natural growth hormone known as IGF-1, which is a carcinogen by proxy; it fuels the growth of cells in your body.
  3. Monsanto, Inc., what is now an agricultural company and what used to be the chemical company responsible for DDT and Agent Orange, invented a growth hormone called Posilac to force cows to produce more milk. It's been illegalized in almost every first world country (except, obviously, the US).
  4. Calcium in milk is useless without an equal amount of magnesium. On average only 11.2% of calcium in your milk is actually used because of the milk's magnesium levels.
  5. Cow's milk has on average about four million bacterial organisms per cup, and the legal limit for one liter of milk is a shocking 750 million.
  6. The cholesterol in twenty-four ounces of milk is equal to 53 slices of bacon. And you thought bacon was bad?
  7. Milk is falsely thought to be kosher; Vitamin-D3 (an ingredient) can be obtained from either pig skin, sheep skin, raw fish liver, and pig brains.
  8. 89% percent of the U.S.'s dairy herds have the leukemia virus.
  9. Lactalbumin, found in cow's milk, is a key contributor to diabetes.

If you want a tl;dr list, just know that milk has industrial chemicals, growth hormones, pus, feces, blood, urine, can give you cancer, hnnnnnnnggggg, and diabeetus, and is made by a chemical company that killed thousands of innocent civilians in the Vietnam War.



And that's not the only thing that was in that ad.

Omicron

the day was mine

Alternia
Seen December 1st, 2022
Posted October 18th, 2022
4,422 posts
13.2 Years
In Mexico, all advertisements are regulated by law. Deceptive and strongly emotion-appealing advertisements are illegal. (Of course, in cases like the first one, the gas one, it can't always be controlled. The government is not on top of everyone for things like this. Also, it is impossible to eliminate completely emotion from marketing.)

TV ads that claim things, like toothpaste commercials that quote percentages and statistics, commercials promoting some kind of raffle, contest or offer, food advertisements that give facts about the origin of the products or their nutritional value, etc. are regulated by a government agency created specifically for that. These commercials and advertisements do not post sources on the information. Instead they show a reference number assigned by this agency. If you look up this number you'll find the report that says that after an investigation, everything said in the ad is true. It also includes studies made by the agency, studies presented by the companies and sources. This applies to everyone, including multinationals like Colgate and McDonalds.

Of course, this results in advertisements less enticing and "boring" compared to commercials by the same companies in the US. But at least you can trust in what they're telling you.

Also, toy commercials are HEAVILY regulated. The reason behind this is actually a very sad story and the reason why the government started regulating ads. A TV commercial for a pair of toy fairy wings in the 1950's convinced some girls between 4-7 years old they would be able to fly with them. Being a Christmas time ad, many of those girls got the wings as a gift. That Christmas was a tragic one after news all over the country reported many cases of girls that died because they had jumped from windows and roofs trying to fly with their wings. Although of course the parents of these girls were as much or more to blame than the advertisement, the government decided to take action and stop commercials like that from appearing again. To only let ads that depicted exactly what the toys could do air on TV. One thing led to another and the government ended regulating everything.

Although most of the time I'm against the intervention of the government in the private sector I have to admit that this is one of the few, very few, things our government has done a GREAT job about. They have eliminated almost completely predatorial advertising. And that doesn't mean that you won't see nor hear commercials, just that most of the time you can trust them. All of these without affecting negatively the sales of the companies.

and i will love to see that day
that day is mine
when she will marry me outside with the willow trees

Alexander Nicholi

work hard, play hard

Age 25
Male
Research Triangle / Jakarta
Seen February 15th, 2023
Posted March 5th, 2021
5,498 posts
13.5 Years
In Mexico, all advertisements are regulated by law. Deceptive and strongly emotion-appealing advertisements are illegal. (Of course, in cases like the first one, the gas one, it can't always be controlled. The government is not on top of everyone for things like this. Also, it is impossible to eliminate completely emotion from marketing.)

TV ads that claim things, like toothpaste commercials that quote percentages and statistics, commercials promoting some kind of raffle, contest or offer, food advertisements that give facts about the origin of the products or their nutritional value, etc. are regulated by a government agency created specifically for that. These commercials and advertisements do not post sources on the information. Instead they show a reference number assigned by this agency. If you look up this number you'll find the report that says that after an investigation, everything said in the ad is true. It also includes studies made by the agency, studies presented by the companies and sources. This applies to everyone, including multinationals like Colgate and McDonalds.

Of course, this results in advertisements less enticing and "boring" compared to commercials by the same companies in the US. But at least you can trust in what they're telling you.

Also, toy commercials are HEAVILY regulated. The reason behind this is actually a very sad story and the reason why the government started regulating ads. A TV commercial for a pair of toy fairy wings in the 1950's convinced some girls between 4-7 years old they would be able to fly with them. Being a Christmas time ad, many of those girls got the wings as a gift. That Christmas was a tragic one after news all over the country reported many cases of girls that died because they had jumped from windows and roofs trying to fly with their wings. Although of course the parents of these girls were as much or more to blame than the advertisement, the government decided to take action and stop commercials like that from appearing again. To only let ads that depicted exactly what the toys could do air on TV. One thing led to another and the government ended regulating everything.

Although most of the time I'm against the intervention of the government in the private sector I have to admit that this is one of the few, very few, things our government has done a GREAT job about. They have eliminated almost completely predatorial advertising. And that doesn't mean that you won't see nor hear commercials, just that most of the time you can trust them. All of these without affecting negatively the sales of the companies.
This is why I want to expatriate. The entire judicial system in my country is filed in by former lawyers for these towering corporations, and they're taking away our freedoms out of greed for control. I'm sick of it. I'd rather live in Malaysia or New Zealand or some other little country than here, seriously.

And this is Mexico! It's not even the best of the best and it's doing better than the States. What the hell is the matter with us!?

acatfrommars

Male
Seen February 5th, 2023
Posted January 9th, 2023
3,870 posts
9.6 Years
If you hope to strike it rich by following signs like that then good luck. You're not going to be able to save much on gas no matter what you do. The oil companies have to make their large checks some how. If you're dumb enough to fall for a sign like that and get angry about it, then it's your own fault. If you work at a place like that, you should be well informed about the sign to help people with questions.