Advertising Manipulation In Advertising

The manipulation of consumers through advertising has become a major issue in the world today. In order for companies to achieve their interests and objectives, which most of the times do not align with what the consumers need, they make up marketing solutions which deceive the consumers, this is referred as manipulation.

This research focuses on the stimuli, techniques and mechanisms of advertising that companies use to manipulate the masses. Deceitful advertising is a type of manipulation technique which uses deceptive facts that confuse and mislead the consumers by providing them with blatant false statements when promoting a good or a service. Although facts are provided, but they are either untrue or there are important

The first stimulus consists of a deep knowledge of consumers buying behavior and the ability of the company to influence it. The advertisements focus on the processes and techniques the customer uses for making the buying decision.

According to Abraham Maslow, consumers have three main categories of needs. Utilitarian needs; the need of food, shelter and security. Next come the social needs which are likely to be accepted by others. Psychological needs top the need category, which make the consumer act in specific ways that are consistent with his mental self portrait and that improve his mental self image to others around him.

The elements of advertising could be connected to distinctive blends of necessities. There are numerous functions that advertising can fulfil: brand identification, brand differentiation, brand value, brand preference, brand loyalty, reuse etc. These functions of advertising have proved to impact the buying decision process of the customer if the advertising efforts succeed to convince the consumer to choose, purchase, use and become loyal to a

The advertising practices must have an arrangement of moral rule that could assist the marketing managers with evaluating the ethical significance of every activity and to choose the extent to which they can go. Numerous practices of advertising show that is an increasing number of situations when there is no allignment of the marketers self-interest with consumers’ interest. Advertisers must be guided by normative marketing ethics, identifying moral standards and systems for good thinking that legitimize guidelines and judgments of what is right or wrong. (Craig Smith,