BY ANTONY MUTUNGA
If you are a fan of fast food then you have definitely been disappointed when it comes to burgers in many restaurants. The picture that is usually advertised looks nothing like the actual burger that one is served.
The one that is usually advertised is full of color making the actual meat look bigger and fresher although this is far from the actual reality. Without noticing it then you have been reeled in by false advertising.
In the business world advertisement has become one of the most important instruments when it comes to attracting and persuading consumers to one’s good or service. The fact that people tend to use their subconscious mind most of the time, most businesses have taken this opportunity to use deceptive and misleading techniques to their advantage to attract consumers to their products.
False, misleading or deceptive advertising can be categorized in different forms; Bait and Switch advertising, where an organization usually advertises a certain commodity either through television, broadcast, internet or billboards at a fair price. However, when the buyer goes to get the product after the advertisement captures their eye they usually find either a different product at a higher price or the seller mostly discourages the purchase of the advertised product.
This is usually common for organizations that sell similar products but with different names. They tend to advertise one product more as being cheaper and better than the other. It usually attracts a consumer to go buy the cheaper product but whenever you go look for the product you tend to find only the other is available forcing your hand to either stay without the product or buy the more expensive one.
Artificially inflating prices is another common form of false advertising that many businesses use to create an illusion that one is acquiring a great deal on a certain product or that one is available. This is commonly used in shops that sell commodities that are usually bought in a day to day period, for example, cell phone stores, clothing stores and supermarkets where some of them dupe consumers using promotions like 50% off discounts and the famous, ‘buy one get one free’. These usually are methods that most stores use to do away with excessive stock on their shelves.
Organizations often mislead consumers on the prices most of the time but this is not the only way as they also deceive them when it comes to the origin of the product as well. For example, some businesses often imply that a product is made in one country when it is not. This is actually common in Kenya where goods are counterfeited within the country but are still branded ‘made in China’ or ‘made in Germany’. Some advertisements even go as far as to mislead the quality and appearance of a product through enticing pictures and bright colored videos that attract the consumer but in real sense the actual product is much different. This is the case of burgers in some of the restaurants.
Searching for any way possible to attract a consumer to their product, advertisers have also adopted to using deceptive statements on guarantees that promise the consumer a full refund in case of no results, even though they know they have no intention of living up to their word. This is often the case for organizations that handle beauty and weight loss products where they usually guarantee results after a period of time or else one gets their money back. However, mostly it is a scam, as they never intend to refund one in case of no results after the stipulated period.
As some advertisers mislead consumers by giving them false information, others have adopted a technique where they deceive people by omitting important information that may change the decision of the buyer. This is known as failure to disclose and it has become the most common form of false advertising. Organizations are intentionally failing to disclose material facts, for example, availability of the product or side effects, when advertising their products thus creating an illusion of a perfect product to attract the consumer.
In Kenya, these forms of false advertising have been a rising trend with most consumers not being aware that they have fallen victim to it. Mr. Stephen Mutoro, the CEO of the Consumer Federation of Kenya (CoFeK) at a press conference said, “There are many cases of false advertising today and evidence of this is clear across the various media platforms; print, broadcast and even online.”
The mostly hit platform is the Internet because advertisers and marketers know that most of the Kenyan population nowadays is online. As according to Quarterly Sector Statistics Report Third Quarter for the Financial Year 2015/2016 (January –March 2016) done by Communications Authority of Kenya, about 37.4 million Kenyans are Internet users.
The Internet being loosely regulated in Kenya, some marketers have put up false adverts all over the Internet especially in social media sites. With behavioral targeting as a marketing tool, it is easy to attract consumers using their social data to determine exactly which products they would like therefore sending false adverts with these products their way to reel them in.
In the wake of increased false advertising, consumers have been advised to have enough information on a commodity when they go to the shop to ensure they are not duped to buying products that are of less value or products they necessarily do not need. CoFeK asks consumers to refuse and report any goods or services that are advertised under false contexts to ensure that organizations are in line with the regulations and the consumers always get the correct and accurate products as advertised.
