Impact of Illusive Advertisement

Marketing is defined as an organization function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to the customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.  Earlier when the brands catering to the needs of the customer were limited there was less of the competition but as the brands increased so did the competition. The rules of the market were simple and everybody was enjoying their share. With the due course of time communication became one of the top priorities. The important mediums constituted print, television, radio, fliers, billboards, mail, telephone, posters, CDs. Audiotapes and internet. Brands wanted to grow by increasing the size of the markets but slowly and slowly with the increasing coverage snatching away of the market share from the competitors became important to survive. Some ground rules were laid down by advertising council of India so that competition may not turn into a hostile war. 

Recently Colgate and Pepsodent two oral health care brands are caught up in defaming case against other. The campaign was so noticeable that even though somebody missed it by chance on television the news covered it up. Earlier also so many similarly themed advertisement talking about brushing the teeth, cavities, germi check have appeared on television. But this one did its task very well meaning to say covering a big chunk of the target audience. Though the case is still going on in the court Pepsodent was able to come in news.

Does the brand appreciate the fact that it has come in the limelight by whatsoever means?

Taking another example of the print ad which was created for fun in the year 2002 and had no implications for the brand communication became viral few days back.

The ad says that the earlier the kids start drinking Cola better it will be for their future. However the person who has made this advertisement says it has no implications for promoting the brand.

Now let us try to understand what does this type of advertisement says at subliminal level. Earlier advertisements used to provide the apt information and people could trust on that while making decision making. But now when the information provided in the advertisement is objectionable. Where does the responsibility of media lies? In the earlier example of Colgate vs Pepsodent  there have been charges that no such laboratory test actually existed which has been shown in the commercial.

The vintage advertisement of Cola shows the name of the “The soda pop board of America” which is nothing. Also the claims done in the advertisement are just baseless. What harm does this misleading advertisement do? These type of advertisements because of their unique claims catches the attention of the audience and then works at the subliminal level. Since not every viewer will cross check or verify the facts and figures they at their subconscious level make an acceptable premise. In future that information which gets stored gives an optimistic purview. Even though a person can straight away negate the claims (as done in the cola ad), but somewhere down the line if somebody supports that idea the response would be positive. This is how advertisements take the people away from realty at a very minute level of consciousness. In case of advertisement of Pepsodent and Colgate though Colgate is the market leader, Pepsodent will be successful in this attempt if its distribution becomes equally strong as of Colgate and it increases its visibility too by 130 percent. The prime advantage which it can bang upon is top of the mind recall because of the free publicity it has earned. Now if that is in sync with the supply chain it can be a successful moment for the brand.

Ethically speaking this type of advertisement claims should be strictly banned and be discouraged. A strict action should be taken for their course of action so that there should not be any misleading effect. The whole purpose of communications gets defeated and it will cost dearly in the future.