I need the paper to be edited and also ensure zero or minimal plagiarism level. Should also have a well-articulated abstract. The said publication is billed to be published in an academic journal. A recommendation may be welcome.

DECEPTIVE ADVERTISING AND CONSUMER REACTION: A STUDY OF DELTA SOAP ADVERTISEMENT

Introduction

Deceptive marketing is false or misleading sales activities and information aimed at luring, coercing, seducing, persuading or enticing both potential and existing consumers of a product to patronize a trader, sellers or manufacturers of a product. It is an act of selling concept as the sole aim is geared towards the immediate conversion of goods to cash not minding the aftermath effect it may have on the buyer or consumer as well as the organization’s sales, sustenance and growth potentials. It can be perpetrated through personal selling, advertising, labelling packaging, catalogue, and deceptive tele-marketing. However, in the developed countries of the world such as America and Europe and even in some under-developed countries, deceptive marketing activities are criminal offences under the Competition Act. In addition, the Act governs various deceptive marketing practices, unsupported test claims and testimonials, misleading ordinary price claims, sending deceptive prize notices by mail or e-mail, certain types of multi-level marketing systems and misleading advertising. Specific provisions also supplement the Criminal Code rules regarding promotional contests.

Apart from addressing the serious issue of unusual sales drop and or new product failure in the market that could be occasioned by post purchase dissonance and lack of repeat purchase by the consumer as a result of the nefarious acts of deceptive advertising, it will be of great importance to traders in our various markets and the management of companies as suggestions will be given to the policy makers which also will serve as clues towards improving their marketing policies and programs towards maintaining and wooing both existing and potential consumers respectively.

Besides it will be useful to other organizations, industries and governmental agencies in the area of policy formulation and strategic marketing.

Deceptive advertising is an advertisement or marketing practice, which is considered deceptive if there is a "representation, omission, or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer". The advertisement does not only necessarily have to cause actual deception, but as noted by Federal Trade Commission (FTC, 1998), the act will likely mislead the consumer.

Although the immense ventures and endeavors have been observed on deceptive advertising which includes identifying and measuring deception but a very slim focus is given on its effects on Consumer loyalty. Deceptive advertising is so to speak as the use of fake or deceptive statements in publicity (Campbell, 1995). Deceptive publicity has been around since the inauguration of time and is still common today. Sometimes it is done innocently by an advocate; however, it is done with the intent in the direction of deceiving the consumers (Aaker, 1974). Generally it is perceived that deception in advertising (false claims) leads to first purchase by the consumer, tricked by the false claims made by the marketer in advertising but eventually after the first use consumer realizes the real quality/ value of the product/ service in most cases and also explores the fallacy of the claims made by the marketer in advertisements. This realization of fallacy hinders the customer from being loyal to that particular brand.

Some traders in the Nigerian markets as well as some producers of various consumer goods engage in deceiving buyers and consumers to patronize their products by lying about what their product (s) cannot do. This they achieve in the course of their personal selling activities with the consumer or through advertising messages, labelling of product packages and in handbills.

Delta soap, a brand of antiseptics toilet soap championed by Orange drugs Ltd. may be one of the key leaders in deceptive advertisement messages. This study unraveled if truly those stainless looking beauty queens featured on the commercials of Delta soap truly use the soap daily on their skin or could it be a mere deceit to lure unsuspecting members of the public.

There’s a need for complete mass orientation and re-orientation of our traders and producers, right from the small scale traders and producers to the big time traders and producers because they exhibit a lot of selfish marketing traits and attitudes.

There’s no product or service that does not have its advantage or disadvantage but what they also do is to emphasize on the products merits and de-emphasize on its demerits. So they need a complete re-orientation and reorganization of their attitudes to life and moral value system. It is a big problem and barrier to our nation’s economic growth as this equally affects our image internationally. The situation has gone so bad to the extent that even the regulatory bodies such as the Standard Organizations of Nigeria (SON), Advertising Practitioners’ Council of Nigeria (APCON) and Consumer Protection Council are more or less like toothless bulldogs as consumers are left at the mercy of the nefarious marketing activities of manufacturers, advert media houses and traders in our markets. This unchecked unethical marketing activity that is ravaging the nation’s moral commercial value system leaves one wondering on the roles of the relevant regulatory bodies. The word “Caveat Emptor” is almost becoming the order of the day as consumers have to look over their shoulders when making purchases as they are on their own.

However, the long run chain reaction of these nefarious acts boils down to post purchase dissonance of such product, lack of repeat purchase and low sales, leading to the failure of such product in the market and subsequently leading to waste of enormous amount of money, time and other material resources invested into the production of such products. The overall effect on the nation will be closure of such productive outfit and mass retrenchment of workers which could also trigger off social vices as the retrenched workers must keep body and soul together.

Customers are day after day affected by advertising and marketing. Customers should be conscious that their buying behaviour can be misled through advertising methods. They have to be aware towards the way companies present and advertise their product or service.

After explaining in detail what deceptive advertising is, the research study will show that customers can react in different ways and how they do it. Moreover, how they judge their purchase, and their opinions of the company that deceived them; as well as how they express themselves nowadays.

The aim of this study is to:

1. identify kind of advertising suggestible to deception

2. examine consumers’ reaction to Delta soap Advertisement

3. identify product in which the seller commonly deceived buyers

The following were the questions this study investigated:

1. What kind of advertising is suggestible to deception?

2. What are consumers reaction to Delta soap Advertisement?

3. Which of the product do seller commonly deceived buyers?

Literature Review/Theory

Social judgment theory suggests that knowing a person’s attitudes on subjects can provide you with clues about how to approach a persuasive effort. Created by Sherif and associates, the theory focuses on peoples’ assessment of persuasive messages (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965).

Research using this theory has often focused on cognitive processes, but there are numerous implications for communicators seeking to persuade others. Social judgment theory proposes that people make evaluations (judgments) about the content of messages based on their anchors, or stance, on a particular topic messages (Sherif et al., 1965). In addition to an individual’s anchor, each person’s attitudes can be placed into three categories. First, there is the latitude of acceptance, which includes all those ideas that a person finds acceptable. Second, there is the latitude of rejection, which includes all those ideas that a person finds unacceptable. Finally, there is the latitude of non commitment, which includes ideas for which you have no opinion—you neither accept nor reject these ideas.

The literature and many empirical evidence has confirmed that the advertisers and advocates of advertisers are always engaged and at times rigorously engaged in any/all of three stated categories of deceptions while campaigning for their products. In the majority settings, measuring deceptive advertising requires detailed, far above the ground- incidence information (on ads, product quality, and inventories) that is difficult in the direction of survey (Boush, 1994).

Deception is a general phenomenon that can occur in virtually any form of communication under conflict of interest (Lvovich., 2003). Deception comes in a wide array of forms other than the outright lie, and among the features that differentiate them are amount and sufficiency of information, degree of truthfulness, clarity, relevance, and intent. Whatever the type of deception, it causes a number of ethical questions and issues for companies, consumers, and policy makers.

Methodology

The collection of data for this study was survey method. This is because it facilitates face-to-face contact between the researcher and the respondents. Hence, cross-sectional survey method was adopted for the study. A questionnaire was designed to conduct the survey and collect data from the users of Delta Soap regarding their usage pattern and influence of advertising on the patronage, repeat purchase and loyalty, perception of deception in ads, and the effects of deception on their preference for the products. The data was collected through convenience based non- probability sampling from 155 users using personal survey method. The study was carried out in Yaba, Oshodi and Alaba International market areas in Lagos State. Two factors informed the selection of these areas. The first factor is the heterogeneous nature of these localities and their large commercial activities. Besides, they are composed of multi-ethnic settlement harbouring a significant number of diverse interest commercial groups. These locations also house the most modern larger markets called Tejuosho, Oshodi and Alaba International market respectively where variety of goods and commercial activities take place. As such, they afford the researcher the opportunity of examining the subject matters among the different commercial and international markets. The second factor is that these areas are urban settlement. They therefore serve as a good representation of urban centers in the country for investigating the subject matter, Deceptive Advertising.

Results/Discussions

Research question 1: What kind of advertising is suggestible to deception ?

Fig 1 : Kind of advertising suggestible to deception

Research question 2 : What are consumers’ reaction to Delta soap advertising?

Fig 3: Reaction to Delta soap advertising

Research question 3: Which of the product do seller commonly deceived buyers?

Table 2: Product in which the seller commonly deceived buyers

Product	Frequency	Percent
Household items	14	9.0
Drugs	89	57.4
Wear	12	7.7
Electronics	10	6.5
Beverages	11	7.1
Services	9	5.8
Others	10	6.5
Total	155	100.0

Conclusion and Recommendation

The findings revealed that the most suggestible type of advertising was television. The nowadays society is always in direct contact with television. Television brings information about news, entertainment but also advertisements. It is impossible to watch television without face an advertisement.

This type of communication allows to touch a maximum of people, using mass marketing technique. Also, a few persons do not find it easy to identify whether an advertisement is deceptive. Moreover, criteria such as age and gender were not relevant for our research. Concerning the main consumers’ reactions, the majority of the people care about deceptive advertising. An interesting point was that people who stated they do not care of deceiving advertising do not buy the brand products anymore. Thus, it proves that in one sense they care of the advertising technique. The results of this study can be very useful for companies that would like to deceive their customers- thanks to advertisements.

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