Deceptive advertising is any advertisement that leads the consumer to beliefs about the product than they would not otherwise believe if they had complete knowledge about the product or service. The goal of deceptive advertising is to modify the consumer’s behaviors, leading them to make a purchase decision based on the false message that they received. Due to laws against it, deceptive advertising is now based on misleading or missing information, rather than actually false statements.

Deceptive advertising has a negative impact on consumers. Deceptive advertising makes them defensive towards advertising messages in the future (Darke & Ritchie, 2007). When consumers are distrustful, future advertising will not be likely to elicit a purchasing behavior. Not only will they become distrustful of future advertising efforts by that marketer, they will become distrustful towards the messages of other marketers as well (Darke & Ritchie, 2007).

Studies have found that deception in advertising lasts for as long as 24 hours after the deceptive message is received. Darke & Ritchie found that deceptive advertising causes people to develop self-protective goals. Over time, this evolves into negative stereotypes about marketing in general, increasing the protective behavior and decreasing the purchasing behavior of the consumer. Deceptive advertising not only harms the deceptive advertiser, it harms any subsequent advertiser as well.

It is now known that certain structures of the brain are responsible for the ability to be persuaded. Certain types of people with certain personality traits will be more susceptible to deceptive advertising than others do (Benforado, 2012). In addition, the online world with its high level of transparency has increased vulnerability to deceptive advertising (Benforado, 2012). Deceptive advertising teaches people to be mistrustful of the advertising industry.