University of Bahrain

College of Business Administration

Department of Management & Marketing

MKT 264 - INTERMEDIATE MARKETING

Semester I - 2020/2021

Controversies in Marketing
Issue: Where is the line between persuading customers and manipulating customers
to purchase products, services and ideas? Is some marketing promotion really
corporate propaganda?
 Introduction:
Manipulation in marketing has become a core problem in today’s consumer landscape. Increasing
number of marketers have been using this methodology to satisfy company goals and objectives
that may be in contrast to consumer needs by presenting their products as ideal solutions to
consumer problems. Since this practice needs to be done at a level where consumers are ignorant
about the manipulation taking place by allowing the need or desire for the product to arise in their
subconscious, marketers have decoded that the best way to do so is through the channel of
communication. Within communication too, marketers would have to choose a form that is hard
hitting yet subtle in its approach of convincing customers, such as advertising. In order to do so, it is
essential for marketers and companies to understand a few pointers about their target customers as
given below:

a. Understanding about consumer psychology and how marketers can influence it:
As per the infamous Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, marketers can understand the driving force
behind consumer needs - physiological, safety, social, self esteem and self actualization. Marketers
could later perceive which need their product fits under best and advertise accordingly.

b. To what extent can factual information be modified to successfully persuade the customer:
Persuasive advertising can be showcased by marketers in two different mannerisms - manipulative
advertising & non-manipulative advertising. While the latter focuses on a clear presentation of
factual information to convince the customer for purchase, the former relies on emotionally
targeting the consumers by not revealing the entire product information in a truthful manner.

Categories of Manipulative Advertising

1. Deceitful Advertising - Within this type of manipulation, the advertiser is likely to use facts that are
false or conceal certain facts from consumer awareness. Here, the marketer may attempt to amplify
the product benefits to an extent that they aren’t supposed to be taken seriously by customers as
well, for example, ‘the world’s best coffee’.
2. Emotional Manipulation - The advertiser may do so by promising outstanding results post usage of
the product or by instilling fear about the dangers of not purchasing the product. In many instances,
this may involve the health concerns of the customer himself or his loved ones which is why it is
usually successful. Many unnecessary diet programmes or antiseptic products capitalize on this
emotional appeal. Some advertisers go farther to promote the ingredients of their products & their

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benefits, by labelling them as the traditional products our ancestors used to use. Sometimes, eco
friendly or green advertising may also involve such manipulation, considering customers who wish
to be conscious of the consequences of their purchase towards the environment. Quite often, these
types of advertisements are known to have an effect of ‘green-washing’ which means to mislead or
boast about the positive environmental effects the usage of the product may have. These emotional
appeals may showcase how products enhance self esteem, social acceptance, reputation and social
standing of the customers who use it, or may even place their product in a manner where it solves
the panic for customers, for example, many home care products have advertised themselves as
bacteria/virus killing products with the onset of the COVID pandemic regardless of whether their
products are able to fight the virus or not.
As per the research presented by Victor Danciu on Manipulative Marketing, the above manipulative
techniques could present themselves in either visual or linguistic forms.
Some of the most important linguistic persuasion techniques come through ‘subliminal advertising’
or through ‘parity products’, the former involves advertisers intentionally targeting linguistic
messages to the subconscious part of the customer’s brain, because the subconscious mind is
extremely powerful when it comes to decision making or influencing the conscious mind in a
particular direction. Hence, when the subconscious mind is targeted, advertisers successfully create
a product need that did not exist earlier without the potential customer being aware of it and
present their product as a solution. On the contrary, in the latter, the advertiser uses certain
phrases or words to present his product as the better one in comparison to similar items in the
market. To do so, the advertiser may use claims such as ‘the weasel claim’ or ‘the unfinished claim’.
The weasel claim may suggest a particular action being performed by the product for example,
‘strengthens’, ‘brightens’, where the product is shown in a better light. As for the unfinished claim,
the advertiser is seen to use comparative statements in a vague manner where no competitive
product is mentioned but a comparison is being drawn and the product concerned is the better of
the two. For example, ‘50% more effective on germs’.
As for visual persuasion, some of the most common techniques may involve photoshopping images,
blending amusement into commercials, manipulation of size and product cost as well as inaccurate
graphs. Photoshopping is regularly used to touch up images, very often seen in beauty product
advertisements, where models are airbrushed to look perfect or even using softwares to add
elements to the screen post production, possibly to add interesting colours that evoke certain
emotions or to highlight the product somehow. Many a times, advertisers are seen blending
entertaining games or visuals into commercials in order to make them more appealing to kids and

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 adults alike. Sometimes, when consumers are not ready to purchase a product, the product size is
manipulated (usually shrunk) and offered at the same price as earlier to induce purchase.
According to Danciu, the ways in which manipulative advertising can be reduced within society are:
a. To encourage advertisers to advertise for conscious consumers that wish for honesty, integrity and
factual statements regarding products.
b. Encourage moral behaviour on part of both advertisers and consumers.
c. By self regulation amongst advertisers through organizations and bodies that check the false claims
within ads to protect consumer interests.
d. Building a mutually beneficial relationship between advertisers and consumers.
According to Victor, manipulation in advertising not only negatively affects the ethical idea of not
causing harm to any individual, but may also hold negative environmental consequences as well as
deter the consumer’s right to choice.

Another article published in the Journal of Business Research revealed that multiple companies have
indulged in manipulating online product reviews to generate better sales. Considering the extent to
which selling and purchasing is moving to online forms due to the pandemic and largely due to ease
of accessibility and saving time, online product reviews serve as word of mouth in the digital space
and one aspect that customers may rely on the most. The research also revealed although e-
commerce platforms such as Amazon have created algorithms to fix the issue, many organizations
still manipulate product reviews by granting customers incentives on publishing positive reviews
such as coupons for future purchase, may even add fake positive reviews through fake fans or may
even directly compensate the e-commerce platform to push the negative reviews below the positive
or to entirely hide or delete them. The study concludes that shoppers are more likely to suspect the
fake positive reviews and not allow it to influence their purchase as compared to the deleted
negative reviews, however this is also dependent on their online shopping expertise as if
experienced, they would avoid influence as they are aware of the review manipulation that takes
place.
Another article published in the Journal of Marketing Behaviour discusses various other examples of
manipulation that may take place for example, the effect of framing words in a particular manner on
product labels, to use charm pricing or odd pricing by using ‘9’ as the last digit to psychologically
make a product seem more affordable in value and so on. An interesting factor discussed in the
article was the collection of ‘big data’ for advertisers to manipulate customers, an example of which

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is the Facebook experiment in 2012 that tried to understand how customers are emotionally
affected by changing the emotional content that appeared on their Facebook feed.
To understand whether or not some marketing promotion is propaganda, we can take a look at
advertisements by Dove which use the plain folks’ propaganda by showcasing real women while
also airing their testimonials in order to induce purchase and allow the customer to believe that the
brand stands for equal representation. Further, the frequent brand wars that Mcdonalds and Burger
King engage in through social media platforms such as Twitter or even through commercials, for
example, an advertisement by Burger King that showcased a clown and used the headline, ‘Come as
a clown, eat like a king’ or even their advertisement for the LGBTQ community using the headline
‘Love Conquers All’ become examples for name calling propaganda. The reason for such propaganda
lies in the brand understanding of the consumer psyche, acknowledging that in the digital space,
name calling promotes virality & entertainment for customers.

Conclusion
Analyzing all the literature reviews above, we can conclude that manipulating customers is an
unethical practice that has largely been popularized to induce purchase. Corporate propaganda has
often been used in marketing promotion to attract customers and could be considered a popular
norm in marketing & advertising.
Implications: Considering ethical aspects, customer manipulation through collection of big data
largely affects customer privacy and may reduce customer trust on organizations. On legal grounds,
customers should be protected from the fake product claims in advertisements that induce
purchase and later fail to deliver. From a more societal perspective, it leads to increased materialism
amongst customers and allows the resourceful organizations to strip the limited resources from the
masses by manipulation.
Suggestions: I believe that in order to combat manipulation, marketing & advertising bodies must
regulate product information circulated to customers and customers must take a greater interest in
thoroughly learning about the products and organizations they support, thereby being ‘conscious
consumers’.

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 References:

1. Zhuang, M., Cui, G., & Peng, L. (2018). Manufactured opinions: The effect of manipulating online
product reviews. Journal of Business Research, 87, 24–35.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.02.016
2. Danciu, V. (2014). Manipulative marketing: persuasion and manipulation of the consumer through
advertising. Bucharest University of Economic Studies. http://store.ectap.ro/articole/951.pdf
3. Wertenbroch, K. (2016). From the Editor: Manipulation and Marketing: The Elephant in the Room?
Journal of Marketing Behavior, 1(3–4), 209–212. https://doi.org/10.1561/107.00000024
4. Boachie, P. (2016, July 21). 5 Strategies of “Psychological Pricing.” Entrepreneur.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/279464
5. Saif, M. (2020, August 25). 11 Types of Propaganda Techniques in Advertising (With Examples).
MotionCue. https://motioncue.com/types-of-propaganda-techniques-in-advertising/
6. Ameen, Z. (2020, November 3). 7 Types of Propaganda Techniques Advertisers Use. Canz Marketing.
https://www.canzmarketing.com/7-types-of-propaganda-techniques-advertisers-use/