Advertising misleads consumers in every possible way

Nowadays it is already arduous to imagine our life without advertising. It is our drink, food and treatment… But is it really trustworthy?

	Advertising misleads consumers in every possible way
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Commercials advertising drinking water are traditionally made in locations resembling paradise. Such adverts usually show a woman or a man diving into the unbelievably pure water. Naturally, this symbolizes bottled water. But do you know that this is water comes from a central water supply source? It would be more honest if the advert character swam in conduits and went through the ‘grinders’ of different filters that are used to purify water before it is bottled. There is one assuasive thing about it: manufacturers of this water do not display snowy mountains with ice-caps on the packaging and do not use words like ‘mineral’ in their trademarks to persuade customers that it is natural mineral water.

As a rule, bright advertising resembling animated cartoons disguises children’s products rich in calories, fats, sugar, salt and poor in nutritive substances. This kind of food is usually referred to as junk food.

“Now there is little doubt left that such advertisements affect children and parents and they buy such products under its influence,” said Dmitry Yanin, the Chairman of the Board of the International Confederation of Consumer Associations of Russia (KonfOP). “It affects children’s meals adversely – they develop unhealthy dietary habits. It is not only the lack of physical activity in children which is to blame for the current global epidemic of obesity. It is also about this kind of nourishment, when children consume food containing a great amount of fats, sugar and salt. Scientific research has proved that already. The World Health Organization supported by many social organizations launched a campaign against this advertising and even far beyond – against the promotion of these products. This is a global campaign that is coordinated in many countries. Recently our organization has joined this movement. We stand up for changing the Advertising Law, banning TV and radio advertisements of children’s food with high content of sugar, salt and fats from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and using cartoons characters in such advertisements and on unhealthy food promotion at schools”.

Among promotion materials prepared by the World Federation of Consumer Organizations – Consumers International - for the global campaign there are a lot of children’s products that are advertised as healthy and useful. For instance, the well-known chocolate breakfast and cornflakes in sugar syrup are considered to contain banned sugar doses.

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