Deception and Dishonesty: A College Degree in Marketing?

Deception and dishonesty are running rampant practically everywhere you go. It’s exhausting trying to sift through it all and get to the truth. This is what is considered “marketing.” It has gotten to the point that if you are honest in what you are selling, you must be some sort of “fool.” However, what is “foolish” is not to recognize that if you are being deceptive in your business dealings, so is everyone else. Therefore it simply is not intelligent to continue these practices. Everyone seems to be doing his or her very best to try and take advantage of everyone else.

I will give you the following examples:

• I bought a box of “Lil Pet Shops” for my children this Christmas. The package contained some sort of jungle gym for the pets to play on and provided seating for them. It also contained one pet. However, there were about 6 or 7 other cardboard pets sitting on this jungle gym. This is obviously being done to lead the buyer to believe they were purchasing much more than they actually were. It is deceptive.

• I went to the grocery store and wanted to buy a 12-pack of soda. I got to the soda isle and in large signs all over the place it said “3 for $9.99.” My immediate reaction was, “oh no… I don’t want 3, I just want 1.” So I read the fine print underneath the big signs and it said, “1 for $3.33.” This is obviously being done to lead the buyer to believe they had to purchase 3 to receive the discount. It is deceptive.

• I receive bills in the mail all the time for magazines that I never ordered. However, it states right on the bill “thank you for your order.” This is obviously being done in hopes that people will just pay the bill and not question it. It is deceptive.

• I went to the United States Post Office to deliver a package. I attempted to use the self-help machine to weigh my package, pay for the shipping, and print out my postage. It had a touch screen. On the screen it asks you whether you want overnight shipping or two-day shipping. You had to press continue to have the option of standard shipping. This was obviously done to lead the buyer to believe they had only two choices, the most expensive ones. It is deceptive.

It is exhausting trying to sift through all of this deception. Nothing is easy anymore. You need to take your time and read the fine print on practically everything. You need to have received a college degree practically to be trained in deception in order to be able to see through it. It is unfair and taking advantage of the public at large. We should not continue to be so accepting of these practices.

Here is a marketing campaign for you, “This is my quality product at a reasonable price, I am not going to deceive you. I am going to be completely honest with you. In exchange, I hope you appreciate my honesty and spread the word.”

If you have questions or comments on this article, please e-mail me at beth@empathylessons.com.

- Elizabeth Fink, December 27, 2008