False Claims

Being home on a week’s vacation gave me the chance to watch TV programs including a long list of advertisements; ads for Mutual funds to matchboxes. The claims made in some of the ads seem to be totally ridiculous, especially the claims and promises made in soap, shampoo and educational institution advertisements are literally too much. They are just confusing and misleading even for a decently educated and experienced people like me.

Image source: http://www.toxel.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/ca9.jpg

I am not sure who will be influenced or attracted to these products based on the features being advertised. But whatever it is, the advertisers should be seeing some traction since they are repetitively making ads the way they are being shown right now. Certain claims made by the shampoo ads are obviously wrong based on the practical usage of certain brands in the past.

It is obvious that most of the features claiming advertisements are literally a cheating business by the manufacturers. Why are the advertisements of such kind being allowed then? Shouldn’t the government control the content of the advertisement by imposing strong regulations? I am not against the advertisements totally, but the ads should only be a brand building exercise that may be based on the real claims that are scientifically and practically provable. Pepsi or coke ads are pure brand building exercises based on dramatized advertisements, that is ok according to me, but the claims made by the educational institutions claiming placement tie-ups, shampoo advertisements claiming long hair, soaps or fairness cream advertisements claiming beauty within a month or so are all practically baseless.

In my opinion, there should be strong regulations on the content of advertisements to save people (not sure whom) from being wrongly manipulated and mislead towards the usage of certain products. Hope the government and the consumer associations in India wake up on this issue soon.