“2008: the year of the skeptical consumer”

This is how Advertising Standards Canada describes 2008. Advertising Standards Canada is an agency which is responsible for regulating advertising. They concluded that there was an increase in misleading ads over the years 2006 and 2007. This evolution was followed by an increase in consumer suspicion. There are 2 different sorts of suspicion. The first one is healthy suspicion, where consumers will scrutinize ads more carefully. The other one is a more problematic form of suspicion, which is called defensive suspicion. Studies show us that consumers who feel misled by an ad become not only suspicious of ads of the same advertiser, but also of similar ads of other advertisers. The consumer will see all marketeers as being the same. To solve this problem there is a need for advertising regulation (corrective advertising) to ensure fair competition which will hopefully increase consumer confidence.
source

Lynn De Winter