Advertising is the key ingredient to a company’s success, so it’s pretty common for a company to go to extreme levels to sell their products. “There are six basic consumer behavior decisions when it comes to creating a desire for a brand name or product.
1. Problem Recognition: The consumer decides that he or she needs something.
2. Search: The consumer gathers information about ways to satisfy this need.
3. Evaluation of Alternatives: He or she weighs the plusses and minuses of the alternatives.
4. Decision: The consumer decides what to buy.
5. Purchase: He or she buys it.
6. Post purchase Evaluation: The consumer decides whether he or she bought the right thing.
In realty, human beings are resourceful enough to find what they need without ads” (Kaufman, 2004). However, ads do as much damage as it does good. Pushing more and more ads down consumers’ throat is not going to necessarily make them want to buy that product; Internet pop-up ads are a prime example. The abundance of ads is not the only problem. Many ads can be misleading in what they are really trying to sell you; Dell is a good example of misleading ads. Travis a dell computer customer writes in an Internet complaint, “we ordered a dimension 8200 series but we were late in receiving the camera kit. When we did receive the camera kit it wasn’t the right one for that computer, but Dell still wouldn’t take it back because it was already past the 30-day warranty” (Travis of Kalispell, MT, 2004). Best Buy is also guilty of using misleading advertisement, which leads to even more serious accusations. Katherine of Hartsdale (2004), NY writes, “for Christmas my mom bought me a Playstation 2 and several games. One of the games wouldn’t work so I tried taking it back to Best Buy. However they would not take it back because they said it was a bootleg copy and the manager, with a standard response, ‘Best Buy did not sell that to you.’ They didn’t even seem surprised that it was a bootleg copy.” What’s this world coming to when you can’t even trust what a company is selling? Now when you buy a computer, it’s always loaded with millions of pop up ads and hidden charges. Personally, I am very disappointed in computer companies, they should know better.
