Monster: An Epitome of False Advertising
While doing my readings for marketing, I find the textbook mentions that government regulation is enforced to prevent companies from “mak[ing] shoddy products, invade consumer privacy, tell lies in their advertising…” (p.137 in text). However, I wonder how well they are enforced, many company advertisements tend to be very misleading. One particularly questionable company is Monster Inc., an electronics accessory manufacturer.
A few years ago they were caught falsely advertising the benefits of their Monster HDMI Cables over their competitors’ HDMI cables – in their demonstration, Monster compared the video quality of TV using their product, and the video quality of a TV using low quality composite cables (rather than a competitor’s HDMI Cable) unbeknownst to consumers.
A more recent example is their Beats Headphones. They claim with their premium headphones,“people are going to hear what the artists hear, and listen to the music the way they should…”, but many headphone reviewers found that to be not true, as their headphones over-exaggerate the bass in most music, much more than artists intend.
In a marketing perspective, I really respect companies like Monster – they understand that most consumers might not want the best sounding headphones, but comfortable, easy-to-use, and fashionable headphones. Their Beats product line has captured 53% of the headphone market (before Beats Audio and Monster broke up). It is unfortunate they have to do it with deceiving advertisements.
Could the government do more to reduce the amount of false advertising?
P.S.: Here’s a very good video about a pair of Beats Headphones:
It’s so interesting what status means to some individuals that they would even go so far to make sure their headphones are of a certain brand. I wrote about Beats in my 296 blog also, but had no idea of this scam! Good job making a reference to class readings
Natalie Shojania
18 Jan 12 at 6:11 pm