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Lying and use of fictions in day-to-day adverts has become more persistent in the contemporary society. False advertisement, therefore, refers to the use of misleading and typically unproven information regarded as false, to advertise a product or a service to customers. It also involves the exposing of untrue stories about someone, a product or a service.
Such advert does not disclose the sources of information but is basically meant to persuade customers on the benefits of particular products or services. A false advertisement not only provides inaccurate information about something, however, it also omits information which it should contain (Goldman 487).
This research paper, therefore, seeks to examine lies and false adverts in their immediate context and their possible effects. Whether on a national television or the local newspaper, the information conveyed by any advertisement must uphold the truth. In recent times, lies and false advertisements have been used extensively by a business enterprise through their sales agents and politicians.

Business companies have always engaged in competition for customers. As result, they have conducted frequent business promotions tailored towards increasing their market share. Persuading customers is also about changing their attitudes and capturing their attention towards the products being promoted.
It involves conveying of information concerning the health benefits of using a certain product as opposed to their substitutes. Consequently, to increase their sales, sellers have over a long time used exaggerations based on their products and services. They have misled customers using their untrue information on their advertisements on health benefits.
In businesses, there are numerous instances under which false adverts has ever occurred. An advert is considered deceptive if it deliberately misleads its intended customers. Among the several deceptions include snapshot retouching, the omission of information, hidden fees and charges, misleading health claims, as well as oversized packaging of products among others (Bevier 25).
To begin with, photographic retouching is a false advertisement used in the cosmetic industry besides the weight loss businesses. They depict false unattainable results to consumers and give a false impression of the cosmetic product’s factual capabilities. This is intended to help such businesses attain a higher competitive advantage over their competitors since their false impression has fully captured their customers’ perceptions regarding the effectiveness of such products compared to those of their competitors without the photo retouch.
The second instance is the omission of information. Failure to include any relevant information about a product is a misleading attempt to the customers. A more relevant example is that of a television advert on prescribed drugs which may precisely fulfill the requirements of the regulations by showing a side-effect at the end of the advert.
Hidden fees and charges is another strategy used by most companies to trick customer who might end up paying an excess fee on the advertised products as opposed to the actual price of the item or service unknowingly. It is commonly used in taxation levies, insurance, and shipping fee.
A good example is the online selling of a product, where the delivery cost is hidden to make the product cheaper to customers. On health claim advertisements, certain words such as cholesterol-free, low sugar and fat levels, vitamins available, chemical-free product etc. in certain manufactured products may not be true but are only meant to convince the customers on the health benefits of a product, although, in reality, such allegations are not based on facts since they have no source of evidence.
They are only meant to attract customers. On the other hand, politics has also formed the grounds of lies and dishonesty in many occasions since politicians have been lying to their followers during their election campaigns along the streets that they are the best. Based on their policies, they have always promised their followers many that they end up not fulfilling, rendering their promises untrue. This has built mistrust between the politician and their followers.
Campaign advertisements holding untrue information have always been broadcasted on televisions and printed in local newspapers so that citizens can read and change their attitudes towards such politicians and vote them in.However, the use of false advertising to gain customers is misleading since its information lacks substantive evidence.
As a result, it is subjected to some effects which are discussed here below. The effects associated with lies and false advertisements include financial loss, broken trust and customer loyalties, distorted competition among others. False advertising is costly to a company and ends up with a huge amount of money are caught (Garramone 148).
For example, the uber advert, “We have made many improvements to the driver experience over the past one year and will continue to focus on ensuring that Uber is the best option for anyone looking to earn money on their own schedule” attracted them a charge amounting to $20 million dollars by the FTC since their advert was found to be based on false allegations.
However, the company is also likely to suffer more serious financial losses if the advert is pulled down. By so doing, the so affected company will lose the money spent in developing the advert. The company can also be sued on the basis of a false advert and be charged more fines in court must also pay the customers who filed the caseFalse advertising has a vast effect on braking trust with clients (Garramone 152).
A company engaged in such illegal act gives an impression of lack of its trustworthiness to business in the sight of customers. This will affect the relationship of the company with its existing and new customers, who will feel betrayed and are likely to look for new suppliers of the same goods and services somewhere else.
Customers may lose loyalty to the business consequently, building a negative reputation of such business on the public domain. This is likely to affect the future operation of a business. Finally, deceptive advertising reduces the competitive advantage of the business. Ideally, a healthy competition between two or many companies should aim at benefiting the customers by providing them with quality products and services at a cheaper cost.
However, a company engaged in false advertising may spend a larger amount of money to make their products attractive. This may hamper their creativity and innovation since they will refrain from conducting research to determine the new factual ways of bettering the quality of their services.In conclusion, false advertisement is misleading.
It involves the use untrue information, without supportive evidence about the quality of goods and product. In a business perspective, the intention of a false advert is to attract more customers and increase the number of sales. It gives a false impression to the customers about a product quality.
However, it affects businesses in various ways, which include excessive loss of finance, loss of customer loyalty, and disrupting healthy competition thus lowers the competitive advantage of a business.