Do
you ever overstate the capabilities of the products
or services you offer? Do you use the words `guarantee',
`promise', `award-winning' or some other accolades
that suggest your products are failure proof, best
in class, or revolutionary? Do your products or services
perform the way you say they willin all conditionsall
of the time?
It
is one thing to make bold, positive claims about a
specific product or featureanother to overstate the
product's capabilities. And yet it happens frequently.
What exactly is behind these claims? Consider a phrase
such as "Promises to lighten your skin by four
shades". Who promises it? How do they do it?
Who judges what a skin shade is? Will it work equally
for all people, of all skin shades? The effects it
has on people may be much more significantand therefore
potentially harmful than we realize. Roe, Levy and
Derby (1999) noted several potential biases including
a positive bias in which consumers provide better
product ratings based on the claim; a `halo effect',
whereby consumers rate the products higher, based
on attributes not stated in the claim; and a `magic
bullet' effect, whereby consumers attribute `inappropriate
health benefits to the product'. Craig, Scot, and
Netemeyer (2000) suggest that false claims which do
affect consumers, can lead to government intervention
due to the possibility that the consumers can be negatively
impacted. On his website (see http://home.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/comp/ad-claims.html
retrieved February 23, 2006), Jeffrey Shank highlights
a number of different types of false or misleading
claims, including `weasel' claims ("Leaves dishes
virtually spotless."), `we're different'
and unique claims ("Cougar is like nobody else's
car."), the `so what' claims ("Strong enough
for a man but made for a woman."), and the `vague'
claims ("For skin like peaches and cream.").
Shank notes that all these claims create the `illusion
of superiority' and that "they balance on the
narrow line between truth and falsehood by a careful
choice of words." Although, we often focus on
consumer advertising, other industries can also be
fraught with grandiose and misleading claims. During
the late 1990s - we often heard that wild valuations
of hot Internet stocks were justified based on `future'
revenue, `future' earnings, and `new' business models.
Billions were made, billions were lost. A handful
of savvy investors preyed on naive day traders, and
even more naive young entrepreneursas did the s,
and often the brokers who pushed these stocks. |
