So, we talked about false advertising in today’s lecture and the professor mentioned about unethical marketing. I thought Shiyu’s blog, “False Advertising Makes Market a Mess,” was interesting. I remembered some people were saying that although the burgers that MacDonald’s offer look different from the pictures on the advertisement, people still buy them. In this case the difference between the actual product and the ads does not really influence people’s buying decision.

However, I believe in other cases, such difference does influence the consumers and can even negatively damage the company’s image.

For example, Online Clothing Shop. A lot of the time when we received clothes or apparels that we shopped online, they look very different from the displayed pictures.

(I’m not saying that the model in the above picture is misrepresenting the actual products; this is just an example of the type of photos that Asian sellers use)

I used to operate online shops on Facebook few years ago and this was a serious problem that I had to face. There were many sellers on TaoBao (a Chinese platform where people can sell or buy whatever they want)  who posted model pictures that looked really nice and high-quality. But once I received the products, I was often disappointed by the quality and color difference. And as a result I deleted those sellers from my supply list right away because I did not want to sell products that look totally different from the model pictures.

I think false marketing is a problem that really need close attention because we as the buyers suffer as a result of their misrepresentation of products.

With businesses that operate like this, they won’t be able to last for a long time. We all know that right now the market trends have moved from transaction-oriented to relationship-oriented. If we sell merchandises that are different from our ads, consumers won’t come and purchase again. Being able to retain the consumers is significant and if the companies cannot achieve that goal, they simply won’t survive in the long run.

I was reading this blog post this morning and found it really interesting.

Why Tackling Obesity NOW Is A Smart Strategy For Coke

Coca-Cola recently published a series of ads that talks about obesity. While people often say drinking soft drinks (Coke) will gain weight, Coca Cola is trying to address this concern by telling people that they now offer low or no-calorie choices, smaller portion drinks, add calorie labels on the containers, and volunteered to change the drinks offered in elementary schools to water, juices, or low or 0 cal options.

See Video (Coming Together)

Coming Together

I think the writer’s points are really good that he identified the reasons why Coca Cola is willing to face such obesity, a topic that might negatively influence the company. The writer stated that Coca Cola decided to do this because of the below reasons:

1. “Public pressure” – while obesity is considered a serious problem now in US, and ignoring the concern is no longer an appropriate option, Coca-Cola has to face this problem and give a reasonable reason.
2. “Negative reputation of high fructose corn syrup”
3. “commitments to health matter more at the start of the year”
4. “focus on health can make competitors look unfeeling or out of touch”

I agree with the above points. In today’s world, social responsibility has become more and more important. If the company wants to maintain a long term relationship with its customers, it needs to show that it cares about the society and the environment. Coca Cola really needs to find a way to address the problem of obesity since their product is highly correlated with obesity. By emphasizing the improvements they tried to make (low cal), the company is able to show people that they actually do care about them. Moreover, doing so enables Coca Cola to sound like as if they care more about their consumers’ health compared to their competitors (e.g. Pepsi).

It was found that horse meat could have been used when making beefburgers in UK. Food Standards Agency (FSA) was blamed for failing to give routine testing on horse meat (because FSA believes horse meat products do not pose a risk to public health).

The big food giant, Silvercrest Foods (a branch of ABP), was found to supply horse meat to big supermarkets such as Tesco and Aldi, and restaurants such as Asda and Burger King. Tesco made an announcement today to apologize for the ‘unacceptable’ horse meat and immediately removed all horse meat products off the stacks today (worth approximately 4.8 billion US Dollars).

Horsemeat in Burgers Tesco Removes Product

Because of the government’s insufficient food testing, Silvercrest Foods’ unethical action, and those big supermarkets and restaurants’ lack of strict check of food suppliers, the consumers, as a result, suffered from the risk of eating horse meat from unknown sources.

When I saw this news, I was really surprised and shocked. While the company is using horse meat to make “beefburger,” maybe in an attempt to lower their cost, don’t they know the severe consequences once the consumers find out that the company is not being honest to them? And what if those horses are found to be sick and carry disease? Slivercrest Foods is a large-scale food supplier, and I believe for all food suppliers, reputation is more important than anything else because people do care about what they eat. While lying to the consumers might be able to bring greater profits at first, once the consumers find out the truth, the loss of consumers’ trust costs way more than the profit they would generate at first. Being ethical when market or sell the products is essential for businesses not only because it protects the consumers, but also because it allows the business itself to build a trusting and  long term relationship with its target consumers.