Examples of Manipulative Advertising

[Md. Anikuzzaman]

Manipulative advertising uses misguided promises of desired results to convince customers to purchase a product. Advertisers try to convince consumers that purchasing a product will make them smarter or more attractive. This sort of advertising can also be considered unethical if it uses misinformation presented as facts, according to Kent Peacock, writing on the University of Lethbridge website. The ability to identify examples of manipulative advertising can help your company avoid using it.

"Expert" Opinion
Manipulative advertising can push the boundaries of who should be considered an expert. For example, the commercials that used to feature a medication being represented by an actor who played a physician on a television series were forms of manipulative advertising. The consumer tended to trust the opinion of the actor because of the fame the actor had gained playing an expert. The danger is that the actor, more than likely, was not an expert on the subject and could have provided misleading information.

A more contemporary form of manipulating advertising with an "expert" opinion is when a political candidate distorts an opposition's stand on an issue to win votes. The politician is seen as an expert on campaign issues, and twisting an opponent's stand is an attempt to manipulate the voters.

Attractiveness
The desire to be associated with attractive people is employed in manipulative advertising in several different ways. A loose association between attractiveness and product marketing is placing an attractive woman near a car to sell the car, or an auto part associated with it. The woman has nothing to do with the product, but her presence attracts the target audience of males in a certain age group. A more direct example of attractiveness in manipulative advertising is a shaving cream commercial that shows an attractive woman being drawn to a man who just used the product. These commercials also include attractive males to try to associate the idea that the male can be considered more attractive for using that particular shaving cream.

Lifestyle
Marketing professionals try to associate their product with a particular lifestyle to reach a specific target audience. For example, a beer company shows a group of friends having a good time in a clean night club drinking the beer to associate it with that type of scenario. Pick-up truck manufacturers use men with facial stubble who are dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt to associate their truck with a working class client.

Fear
Various interest groups often use fear in informational commercials to emphasize their point. For example, an anti-smoking group that features images of a diseased lung in its advertising is using fear to accent its point that smoking is unhealthy. Another example of manipulative advertising that uses fear is cracking an egg into a skillet while comparing the egg to the human brain when it is on drugs.

Source: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-manipulative-advertising-11668.html