THE EFFECTS OF MISLEADING ADVERTISEMENT TO THE

CONSUMERS’ BUYING BEHAVIOR

BARCELON, Alexandrine Erica D.

CONCEPCION, Carla Marie C.

DE GANA, Mariden Ann Gabrielle E.

A Senior High School Research

Presented to the Faculty of the

Department of Senior High School

Of the

SAN PEDRO COLLEGE OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

In Partial Fulfillment of the Senior High School Strand

ACCOUNTANCY, BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT STRAND

December 2019
 CHAPTER ONE

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

Introduction

Advertisements are meant to pass along information and ensure that consumers know

what is being sold. Based on the research of of Bleier and Eisenbeiss, the cosumer’s buying

behavior is based on pricing information, product design, and promotion lifestyle. The

researchers also confirmed that consumers also provide personal banners as their information

about the product. These personalized banners will help them to decide if they would purchase it

or not. (Bleier and Eisenbeiss, 2015).

This role of advertising, however, is changing. Numerous media exists through which

advertisements can be publicize (Davis et. al, 2013). Current claims of misleading advertisement

relate to manipulating consumers often, the misstatement of the advertisement cannot be detected

(Aslam, 2014). Many Scholars have highlighted the concept of deception; most have agreed that

deception usually benefits the seller (Faerber and Krelin, 2014; Xie, Madrigal and Boush, 2015).

According to Hosseini et. al (2016), showed that gender can be a factor in identifying false

advertising. Gender is an especially important factor with respect to personal products. The

researchers identified one form of false advertising is to claim that a product has a health

vitamins or contains minerals that in fact it does not.

Advertisement is an effective way of promoting goods and services to a potencial

customer. It also became a part of our daily lives. When driving and walking, billboards are on

highways, and when taking public transportations advertisements surround the walls of the bus

or trains. These advertisements are supposed to give people truthful informations and inform
consumers on new products. But some advertisements are not always truthful and that is why

false or misleading advertisement is such an important issue. Companies are very eager to

produce high sales, which is why they will try harder for their advertisement to save money

(Deanna Nanni, 2016)

Advertising is the most popular means of reaching potential customers with information

about a product (Kariyawasam and Wigley, 2017). Advertising may also be considered

misleading if important information that a normal consumer needs to be informed before making

decisions left out. According to research, misleading advertisement portray inaccurate and false

information in order to get users to carry out an action. These advertisement use different forms

of dishonest techniques such as false claims or statements, inaccurate affiliations, or fictitious

company information, just to name a few (Tom Hooker, 2019).

Consumer buying behavior is the sum total of a consumer's attitudes, preferences,

intentions, and decisions regarding the consumer's behavior in the marketplace when purchasing

a product or service (Shawn Grimsley, 2019). Some studies have explored advertising with a

focus on issues of packaging, labelling, media statements, sales people, customers interaction

and other communications relating to sales (Faerber and Krelin, 2014; Xie, Madrigal and Boush,

2015).

Statement of the Problem

Consumer behave in certain ways to satisfy their desires through purchasing, choice,

consuming, and evaluating products or services. They go through various stages and processes

when they want to buy a product or service (Evans, 2010; Patil, 2017) The researchers aim to

determine the effect of misleading advertisements to the consumer’s buying behavior.

 Specifically, it will seek to answer the following questions:

1. What is the profile of respondents in terms of :

1.1 Age, and

1.2 City Address

2. Is there any significant influences that would affect the consumer’s buying behavior?

3. How do the respondents anticipate the product if the advertisement is misleading?

Objectives

Regarding misleading advertisement the claims are intentionally made to mislead consumers

to read beyond the real message and to draw wrong conclusions about the product or services

being advertise (Hastak and Mazis, 2011). This study aims to know the effect of misleading

advertisement to the consumers’ buying behavior.

Below are some focuses expected to be accomplished through this research:

1. To give information to the readers and consumers to avoid having the wrong mindset

about a certain topic.

2. To study the effect of misleading advertisement on consumer’s buying behavior.

3. To analyze the importance and purpose of having awareness from misleading

advertisement on consumers.
 Conceptual Framework

Input Process Output

Consumer
Misleading Survey
buying
Advertisement Questionnaire
behavior

ing

This framework shows that the independent variable is the misleading advertisement that

shows significant effect to the dependent variable which is the consumer buying behavior. The

study will be done by survey questionnaire.

Scope and Limitations

This study will focus on finding out the effects of misleading advertisement to the

consumers’ buying behavior. The advertisement that will be used is about fast food chain

advertisement. The data collection would be conducted at San Pedro City, Laguna with the

respondents who are at the age of 15 to 39 years old. The study would be done through the usage

of questionnaire as a survey and reference.

Significance of the Study

Consumers. This would bring awareness or information from brand advertisements that they

are purchasing.
Future Researchers. The results of this study would be a good source of information for student

researchers to use as stepping stone in studying the effects of misleading advertisement to

consumers buying behavior.

Definition of Terms

Misleading Advertisement. Are the false or unproven information about a product being

advertise to consumers.

Consumer Buying Behavior. It is the sum of total attitude of consumers, which individuals

search for or purchase in satisfaction for their needs and wants.

Potential Consumer. Individuals who have not yet taken the service of a certain company but

likely to be their future customers.

 CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Foreign Literature

According to the study of Bleier and Eisenbeiss (2015) entitled The Importance of Trust

for Personalized Online Advertisements, personalization depth and breadth define a targeting

banner’s advertisement personalization. Trust in the retailer, and distinction of negative

responses to personalize advertisements are important in online advertising. The researchers used

the field data to show that the effectiveness of retargeting to determine the consumers’ trust in a

respective trader. To uncover the essential instrument of this research, they investigated how

trust moderates the impact of advertisement personalization on consumers’ internal and external

responses. The purpose of this two-dimensional conceptualization of advertisement

personalization; First, a banner’s personalization depth defines how closely the advertisement

reflects a consumer’s interests. Second, its personalization breadth determines how completely

the banner reflects these interests. The results of the study show that, for banners from more

trusted traders, through intensions are particularly high when advertisements reflects a

combination of high depth and narrow breadth of personalization. This occurs not only because

consumers perceive these banners more useful than those with low depth, but also because these

advertisement do not elicit increased reactants or privacy concerns compared to low-depth

banners. By contrast, for banners from less trusted retailers, a higher-depth of personalization

decreases consumers’ through intentions, irrespective of banners’ personalization breadth.

Consumers do not only fail to view these advertisements as more useful than low-depth banners,

but they also experience increased reactance and privacy concerns.

According to Kariyawasam (2017), one of the most substantive developments of

marketing activities in recent years has undoubtedly been the rise and growth of internet.

Although online shopping has provided new international landscape to conduct business the use

of this and absence of face-to-face interaction has presented challenges in terms of the consumer

protection. Moreover this article examines the nature and extend of misleading and deceptive

online advertising and looks at the degree to which common law have evolved to deal with false,

deceptive online advertising on the internet.

However, according to the article entitled Four Sunscreen Slapped for Misleading

Consumer (S. Moody, 2015). Four leading sunscreen have been slapped down for misleading

issues about the level of protection they offer. Consumers found out that four out if six spf 50+

sunscreen tested did not meet the protection claims published on the packaging.

Moreover, according to the article entitled Impact of Misleading Advertisement: Issues

and Remedies (C. Jeeva, 2016). Advertising is one of the public media option used to reach out

to the audience to sustain their interest through words and illustration to encourage them to buy

the product. It is intended to enhance the awareness among the customers. The article highlights

such issues, a consumer will pay higher price for the product based on the tall claims made and

the product does not match the claim, and looks at the concepts of misleading advertisement and

their impact to the consumers.

According to the article entitled Investigating Misleading Advertisements: What are they
and why you should avoid them (Tom Hooker, 2018). Online marketing has become a part of

any successful business regardless of its industry. An affective digital advertising campaign can

send your venture off the ground and present it as a solution to your audience. There are several

types of misleading advertisement like scare techniques it relies on manipulation to encourage a

certain response or behavior from the users. A reliable advertisements, allowing us to compete

for clicks in a fair environment.

Foreign Study

The study entitled Misleading advertisement in India: A Comparative and Critical Study.

This paper aims to make a thorough, competitive, comparative and critical study of misleading in

India. The influence of advertisements on consumers’ choice is undeniable, that is why

advertisements should be fair and truthful. There are always two sides of a coin, advertising is a

must for economic growth but should not be allowed to mislead or become a nuisance factor

(Patil A., 2018).

However, the study entitled Content Analysis of False and Misleading Claims in

Television Advertising for Prescription and Non- Prescription Drugs, can harm the consumers.

The previous research of Health Care System has demonstrated that physician-targeted the drug

advertisements may be misleading. Potential misleading claims omitted important information,

exaggerated information or expressed opinions. False claims were factually false or on

substantiated (Faerber and Kreling, 2013).

The study of Impact of Deceptive Advertising on Customer Behavior and Attitude:

Literature Viewpoint, advertising plays a vital role to increase sales and to enhance the customer

loyalty. However, there will be a negative impact of deceptive advertising on customer behavior
and attitude. Deceptive advertising is a controversial matter. Otherwise the study suggest that

advertising companies should not focus on false claims. Advertising should be at the level of

competitive services to generate positive customer attitude. (A. Khan and A. Rajput, 2014)

According to the study on the Impact of Deceptive Marketing on Consumer Behavior: A

Case of cellular Industry of Pakistan, the factors that affect the reaction of consumers are

important. As Pakistan is the third largest telecommunication in the world, consumers who use

different cellular networks are tricked through false marketing and false features shown in the

advertisement. The considered misleading factors according to consumers that are examined

were incorrect interpretation, financial, emotional loss and misleading claims. Company uses

unrealistic promises and overstated statements to influence the consumers which is now known

as clever and competitive advertising by business personnel (Khan, et. al, 2015).

Moreover, the study of Effect of advertising and Deceptive Advertising on Consumption:

The Case of Over-the-Counter Weight Loss was all about to estimate the impact of exposure to

deceptive statements on the consumption of the advertised product and its substitutes. The

researchers included the matching of specific advertisements to individual respondents based on

their TV watching behavior and magazine reading. The study has several limitations. First, the

researcher effort to control the targeting of advertisements may be incomplete. In addition, there

is a measurement error in their estimated exposure. Despite these limitations, the study provides

direct evidence on the effect of deceptive advertising on consumption of the advertised good and

its substitutes. The researchers concluded, that the exposure to deceptive advertising is associated

with a lower probability of consumption by women. The association of advertising exposure with

consumption is greater for women than men, and greater for white females than African-

American females. (J. Cawley et al, 2013)

Local Literature

According to the article entitled Shop Wisely; false advertisements abound (T.

Valderama, 2013). The author was bombarded with false or deceptive sales, advertising, and

marketing promotional strategies, and no these. Every day they see price manipulation,

incomplete or inconsistent comparison, misleading illustration, false guarantee to boost the

product sales. The most common deception in product is the misleading illustration, in some

products, the serving suggestions are much less than what appears in advertisements. There is

also a gimmick where the products are advertised, but not available when you go to the store,

and you are offered a similar product at higher price. Big supermarkets practice this, and they get

away with it.

However, according to the study of Victor Avecilla (2014) entitled Misleading

Advertisement of Food and Supplements, among the desires youth affords a person is the

physical capacity to eat a lot of sweets, and to drink liquor as if there is no tomorrow. Youth can

have all the candy, chocolate, ice cream, cakes and pastries they want, without fear of getting

diabetes. Teenagers can consume all the alcohol they wish needing the prospect of developing

liver disease. Too much sweets in a youngster can only lead to juvenile obesity, tooth decay, or

acne. One product, which is a kind of pill, claims to protect the liver against the effects of too

much alcohol consumption. Its advertisement promotion starts with the advisory that one

sh+ould take care of one’s liver. That is being followed by the suggestion that a person take that

particular pill if he had too much alcohol to drink. But that suggestion also have bad benefits.

The promotional advertisement also seems suggest that one can drink all he wants anytime,

anywhere without worrying about the possibility of developing liver disease, as long as he takes

this pill. Otherwise, there is no explanation offered as to how the pill protects the liver. These
advertisements make it a point to mention words and phrases like organic, natural, herbal and

fiber to suggest that there is absolutely nothing artificial in them, and that they are obviously safe

to use.

Moreover a study of Nestor U. Torre entitled Television commercials and the Falsity of

their Claims, at a recents arts and media conference, one of the conflict brought up by some in

the audience was the disturbing issue of truth in advertising, disregarded by television

commercials in their exaggerated claims for their products. It was acclaimed that they were too

well-off to be credible as users of cheap products. Viewers hope that the truth in advertising

regulators will be more aware and anxious in rejecting these false claims and approve only those

advertisements whose claims actually work.

According to the article entitled How About a Law on Truth in Advertising? (A. Roberto

and Dr. N. Roberto, 2013). Advertisers have been and continue to be generally contented with

the self-regulating advertisement industry. An advertisement supposed to persuade their

consumers to try the product driven by exaggerated or untruthful claims. So if the buying

consumer is disappointed with the bought product, no repeat will follow. That’s the disappointed

consumer’s first and last purchase, and that signals the death of the falsely advertised product.

Some or many of those disappointed consumers may get angry enough that they may decide to

tell others about their sad experience. The downside here is the false advertising claims.

Competitors who may have felt threatened about possible and likely market share loss may

decide to bring to court the company behind the falsely advertised product. The author concluded

that there is yet no solid ground and a good case in favor of a law that your clients want and for

government to intervene and regulate the advertisement industry.

 On the other hand according to the article entitled Filipino prefer to save than shop (C.

Regalado, 2013). Most of the Filipino consumer prefer to spend than saving money despite of

being the second most optimistic about their finances according to global survey. The Filipino

shopper are also at top 10, placing 6 th among the global consumer s who preferred to save their

cash than to spend. According to the managing director Nielsen Philippines Stuart Jamieson

retailers should take advantage of high consumer optimism of Filipino as the holiday season

nears. Consumer’s confidence globally increased by more than half across markets.

Local Study

According to the study entitled Unethical Advertisement in the Philippines (UKessayc,

2017). Advertisers seize the opportunity to maximize its profit, thus increasing competition in

finding ways to captivate the attention of millions of potential consumers to buy their products.

Unfortunately, in the Philippines, most consumers are not aware of their right. Maybe the

consumers are uninformed to the ethics of advertising because of the majority of the Filipino

consumers cannot differentiate ethical from unethical advertisement. Metro Manila consumers

are exposed to different types of advertising medium frequently. Notice that throughout the

different categories of consumers printed advertisements like posters, flyers and brochures are

low. It might also the factor that billboards and televisions are almost unavoidable compared to

brochures and flyers. So this shows that traditional advertising communication like televisions in

the Philippines is still a trend. Advertisers cross to earn millions, is accepting assignments in

which harmful products are to be advertised. In particular, advertising for alcohol and tobacco

products have been a controversy in most countries claiming to encourage consumers to use

unhealthy products.
 However, according to the study of Sangalang et al. (2017) entitled Factors Influencing

Consumers’ Impulsive Buying Behavior in the Fifth District of Cavite, the study determine the

factors greatly influenced it. The study also assessed the type of impulse buying behavior the

consumers have. Three hundred eighty-five consumer participants of the study. The impulse

buying behavior has been recognize as one of the important studies conducted by marketers and

researchers, as influenced buying had become an extensive phenomenon in every retail formats.

The main objective of this study is to assess the factors influencing consumers’ impulse buying

behavior in the supermarket setting, thus evaluate if sub-factors of internal and external factors

significantly influence. Based from the result, age significantly influence the impulse buying

behavior of the participants. The result is supported by the study of Asinya, Ekeng and Lifu

(2012) which proved that age of consumers has significant influence to impulse buying behavior.

The findings revealed that it has a significant influence to impulse buying behavior. The result

validated the study of Ahmad, Bashar and Wasiq (2012) that impulse buying could be more by

married persons as compared to single. The findings stated that it significantly influence the

impulse buying behavior of the participants. This involves that income level positively

influences on consumers’ impulse having behavior. The impulse buying is found as a superior

for the consumers who can afford it. The study concluded that its main findings were somehow

related to other studies of factors influencing consumers’ impulse buying behavior. The findings

thereafter provided a conclusion concerning how consumers purchase impulsively and what

factors influencing that behavior.

According to the study entitled Advertising can be Deceptive: A Position Paper (B.

Villaflores, 2013). Consumers are caught in the power of advertisement that has become part of

their routine. As a matter of fact, it has become their basis whether to buy a certain product or try
a newly advertised food. The use of celebrities has become one of the major aspects in

advertisement. As people get drowned of the new products due to advertisements they fail to see

that advertising can be deceptive. It can mislead them into buying or using products that they

don’t really need and products that they are not sure if can benefit or secretly ruin their health.

There are numerous ways that consumers are being deceived by advertisements. One common

example of deception use in advertisement is fillers and oversized packaging, one common

example of this is food. Whether it is in print or television, advertisements can either be honest

or deceitful. Or it could be a combination of both.

On the other hand according to the study entitled consumer behavior among Filipinos: A

quantitive study about vanity, materialism, and gender differences (A.J.A. Valencia et. al , 2017).

Brought by the innovation and economic progress to the world, people shifted their spending

behavior from functional to materialistic purposes. The lack of information about the consumer

behavior of Filipinos, specifically about the matters of vanity and materialism. 200 Filipinos

were surveyed which is mainly intended to answer the following hypothesis: 1) consumer vanity

is positively related to anxiety, 2) consumer vanity and materialism are positively related, 3)

anxiety is positively related to materialism, 4) the relationship between consumer vanity and

materialism is mediated by anxiety, 5) there is no difference in consumer vanity and materialism

between Filipino males and females. The result rational to the hypotheses, that there is a

significant relationship between vanity and anxiety with materialism independently, also

showing that there is no significant differences among the genders with regards to materialism

and vanity. But it failed to show the evidence that supports anxiety as the mediator between

vanity and materialism. The study intend to add to the existing consumer behavior researches,
especially to aid in advertising that targets the Filipino demographics by giving information on

Filipino consumer behavior and to take advantage to the rising metro sexuality in the Philippines.

According to the study entitled consumer perception and purchase behavior on online

shopping among students in Mindanao University of science and technology (Mahinay R., et al,

2016), the study determined whether there is a significant relationship between consumer

perception and purchase behavior on online shopping among students in Mindanao University of

Science and Technology. This attempts to investigate how dependency on the internet can alter

consumers’ perception and online shopping behavior. The researcher used purposive non-

random sampling was conducted to 200 respondents in four different colleges in the university.

Through a survey questionnaire adopted from three different previous studies, three elements of

perception were gauge: (1) convenience; (2) benefits; (3) leisure, and another three elements of

behavior: (1) convenience; (2) security; (3) leisure. The researchers found out the respondents’

perceptions and their purchase behavior on online shopping are both high. Correlational analysis

yielded a high significant association between their beliefs and behavior at .05 level of

significance. To sustain their high perception on online shopping, it is suggested that web

developers should incorporate features on their websites regarding convenience, security,

benefits, and leisure. It is important for online marketers, entrepreneurs, and businessmen to

consider the fact that students spend more time on the internet and that this factor will likely

increase the students’ online shopping behavior. Furthermore, the researchers suggested for

future studies to compare the elderly age groups with younger consumers on their perception and

purchase behavior towards online shopping so that wider coverage can be achieved by the online

shops and thereby maximize business opportunities.

Synthesis
 Kariyawasam (2017), C. Jeeva (2016) and J. Cawley et al, (2013) stated that today's

advertisement are very helpful to the selling of many known products. Because of the

technology, many consumers are just basing on the seen products who's been advertised on the

internet and not the product itself. According to A. Khan and A. Rajput (2013) advertising is

very helpful in increasing a product's consumption and consumers' loyalty. They also stated that

companies should not focus on false claims but they should have more competitive services to

have positive customers' attitude. However, Khan, et al, (2015) stated that the customers' reaction

also needs to be considered when making advertisements. According to Bleier and Eisenbeiss

(2015), S. Moody (2015) , Patil A. (2018), Nestor U. Torre (2012), Sangalang et al, (2017) said

that dishonesty can have a big impact to the product's image. The customers' trust is important

for a product to be purchased. The honesty can be a key to success of a product if the

manufacturers will produce what does their advertisement is saying. On the study of C. Regalado

(2013) says that the Filipinos used to spend more money that saving it on the holidays seasons so

the retailers should take advantage of it to earn more or to sell their products. Most of the

consumers here in the Philippines are not aware of their own buyings rights. Many Filipino

consumers just buy what they saw in the internet without even checking the product's

background. Furthermore, Faerber and Kreling (2013), T. Valderama (2013), Victor Avecilla

(2014), and B. Villaflores (2013) stated that misleading advertisement can harm the consumers.

It can harm them by giving inappropriate informations that can lead to misuse of the product or

worst can ruin one's life. According to A. Roberto and Dr. N. Roberto (2013) that the

Advertisements supposed to give satisfaction to the customers not a dissapoinment. Because of

misleading advertisement, a product can be useless to the market if they continue to produce

opposite products to their advertisement claims. Morever, A.J.A. Valencia et al, (2017) and
Mahinay R., et al (2016) stated that because of innovation and economic progress, people

became materialistic than choosing functional things. They buy all the things that they want even

if the product's content is not clear just maybe beacuse it was a trend or they just wanted to have

one.

CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the research method to be used, the respondents, description of the

respondents, research instrument to be utilized, data- gathering and procedure, and statistical

treatment of data.

Research Design

The study will use qualitative research methods to analyze the responses of consumers

who participated the study. A descriptive approach will be using to determine the effects of

misleading advertisement to the consumers’ buying behavior. A descriptive research is defined

as a research method that describes the characteristics of the population that is being studied.

This focuses on the “what” rather than the “why” of the research subject.

Population and Sample

 The population will be the people of San Pedro City, Laguna. The study of M.T. Nuseir

entitled Impact of Misleading/False Advertisement to Consumer Behavior used 80 respondents.

This study will also use 80 respondents and to get the sample size, the researchers used Slovin’s

Formula with 5% margin of error. The sample will be 67 respondents. The sampling method to

be use is Stratified Random Sampling Technique because it is a method of sampling from a

population which can be divided into subgroups such as age and city address.

Description of the Respondents

The respondents of this research will be the San Pedro City constituents who are dining at

Jollibee fast food chain within the vicinity of San Pedro City. The respondents’ age range will be

15-39 years old because at this age they are more on exploring new and different products seen

on the advertisement.

Research Instrument

The instrument used was a research-made questionnaire checklist to gather the needed

data for the respondents’ profile. The draft of the questionnaire was drawn out based on the

researcher’s readings, previous studies and published thesis relevant in this study. In preparation

of research instrument, the requirements in designing a good data collection instrument were

considered. For instance, statement describing the situations on the questionnaire was toned
down to accommodate the knowledge preparedness of the respondents. In this way, the

instrument is authorized to obtain valid responses of the respondents.

Data Gathering and Procedure

1. The researchers will choose their respondents using the Random Sampling Technique in

San Pedro City.

2. The researchers will give the instructions to the respondents on how to answer the

questionnaire.

3. The chosen respondents will be requested to answer a 4 point Likert Scale by putting a

check on the survey questionnaire provided by the researchers.

4. The researchers will collect the answered survey questionnaire.

Statistical Treatment of Data

According to the study entitled Impact of Misleading/False Advertisement on Consumer

behavior (M.T. Nuseir, 2018), analysis of variance is used to indicate that misleading

advertisement has an impact on consumer behavior. The formula of Analysis of Variance is

shown below:

Where:
F = Anova Coefficient

MST = Mean sum of squares due to treatment

MSE = Mean sum of squares due to error

Formula for MST is given below:

Where:

SST = Sum of squares due to treatment

p = Total number of populations

n = The total number of samples in a population

Formula for MSE is given below:

Where:
SSE = Sum of squares due to error

S = Standard deviation of the samples

N = Total number of observations