Any Surprise That Advertising Has Lost Credibility Over The Years at ExperienceCurve

Sure it’s an old advertisement from the era that had Doctors endorsing cigarettes, but this kind of misleading information is still rife all kinds of outbound communication from ads to packaging. From telling me that a packet of chips (crisps) has two serving sizes, to saying 0% fat and then loading up with sugar or HFCS, to saying a chicken is “all natural”, to describing a petrol company as an “energy” company, it all serves to erode the “benefit of the doubt” that I will give companies and drive me toward companies that I trust. One thing is for sure my trust in companies is mostly built, slowly over time, through many interactions, across many different facets of their business. This is why the web and social media are so powerful and disruptive to business as usual, I have so many ways to interact with, companies, to experience every facet of their company in different ways, and learn through other customers experiences, companies are really laid bare.

After thinking about this a bit I searched around for “missleading advertising” stuff and came across this study from the Journal of Consumer Affairs from 1981 titled Consumer Perceptions of Advertising as Misleading

A mail survey was conducted of 314 residents of two California cities to measure consumer perception of the prevalence of misleading advertising. Information was obtained concerning the extent of misleading advertising in the various media, for 30 products and services and for three age groups. The findings indicate that over half of the sample viewed “most” or “all” mail and telephone advertising as misleading, and that 38 percent of the respondents regarded “most” or “all” television advertising as misleading.

Wow, if that was 1981 I hate to think how many people think “most” or “all” advertising is misleading. Anyone know of more recent studies?

UPDATE:

From Idris Mootee’s excellent MBA presentation on the future of marketing

6 Responses to “Any Surprise That Advertising Has Lost Credibility Over The Years”

Feed for this Entry Trackback Address

1 Toad
March 17, 2008 at 7:06 am

Interesting stats.

This holds true in the US and other first world countries. In less developed countries, marketing and advertising is still new. I’ve heard much anecdotal evidence that they tend to take marketers at their word- similar to US/UK in the 30s and 40s - and that sarcasm and exaggerated humor are ineffective because audiences in these markets take ads quite literally. Curious to see how long it takes them to catch up to West.
2 Karl
March 17, 2008 at 9:28 am

Toad that is an excellent point. I wonder if the proliferation of web technology will accelerate that sort of transparency.
3 Jon Burg
March 17, 2008 at 11:15 am

Just shared this around the office - people are loving it.
4 Karl
March 17, 2008 at 11:29 am

Thanks Jon, love the feedback, cheers!
5 Mal
March 24, 2008 at 12:53 pm

Seems like modern advertising is more about making it difficult to find the reality of claims and relying on the laziness of the customer, whether that be a serving size or an asterisk with an AUP. Interesting to see those images of a naive time.