Advertising is Legalized Lying

In 2005, Camel put out an advert, which said, “according to a nationwide survey, doctors smoke Camel cigarettes more than other cigarette.” When I read this, I was shocked. How could a someone associate one group of people, doctors, whose number one priority is trying to save your life, and twist it so that it sounds as if they approve of something which clearly, they do not. Even though its not technically lying, its twisting a negative idea into something positive.

Advertising is legalized form of lying. Most advertisements and advertisers make totally false and tall claims, which is far from reality. And they call it creativity. It is nothing but lying and society has tacitly grown to accept it. If the strict definition of "cheating" is taken, as is commonly defined in most countries across the world, then most advertisers and the companies would have to be put behind bars for the offence.

It is not entirely clear what is meant by legalized form of lying. There are lies that advertisers cannot legally utter, and then there are exaggerations, poetic over-statements, or misleadingly incomplete information, which advertisers can get away with. A great many of the statements that advertisers make are not literally true, but then, they are not expected to be taken literally. For instance, Cadbury say “Our chocolate is out of this world, it is so delightful that you will forget all your problems and feel like you have gone to heaven.” You won't, but you didn't take those claims seriously.

In most countries, lying in an advertisement is illegal. In fact, in many states in the US such as California and Arizona, its illegal.

There is such thing called false advertising. False advertising or deceptive advertising is the use of false or misleading statements in advertising. It is illegal but people are hardly ever prosecuted