Though advertising is one of the most frequently used medium of promotion of goods and services, it attracts lot of criticism. Identify various criticisms of Advertising:
(A) Undermines Social Values
(B) Encourages Sale of Inferior Products
(C) Confuses the Buyers
(D) Flexible Tool
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → (A), (B) and (C) only
(A) Undermines Social Values — An objection (Correct). Advertising promotes materialism. It shows people new products and makes them unhappy with what they already have.
(B) Encourages Sale of Inferior Products — An objection (Correct). Advertising promotes good and poor products alike. A poor product can also be sold through clever advertising.
(C) Confuses the Buyers — An objection (Correct). So many products claim to be the best that the buyer cannot tell which claim is true.
(D) Flexible Tool — Not an objection (Incorrect). Flexibility would be a merit, not a criticism. In fact advertising is not flexible: the same message goes to everyone and cannot be changed to suit each listener. That flexibility belongs to personal selling. The objections are that advertising adds to cost, undermines social values, confuses buyers, encourages the sale of inferior products, and that some advertisements are in bad taste.
NCERT (2026-27 Edition): “Objections To Advertising … 2. Undermines Social Values: Another important criticism of advertising is that it undermines social values and promotes materialism. …” “3. Confuses the Buyers: Another criticism against advertisement is that so many products are being advertised which makes similar claims that the buyer gets confused as to which one is true and which one should be relied upon. …” “4. Encourages Sale of Inferior Products: Advertising does not distinguish between superior and inferior products and persuade people to purchase even the inferior products.” |