Canada’s national not-for-profit advertising self-regulatory body Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) has released a new report on Canadian consumers’ views on advertising, entitled 2013 Consumer Perspectives on Advertising.
Top of the list of advertising annoyances for Canadian consumers?: misleading advertising (significantly more than other issues, such as offensive advertising – 85% for misleading claims versus 15% for offensive ads).
Perhaps more sobering for brands, according to the new ASC report, is that 92% of Canadians surveyed said that they would likely stop purchasing a product or service if a company ran false, misleading or offensive advertising.
Also interesting, the new ASC report found that top of the list so to speak of misleading advertising issues included: false “free” product claims (i.e., where there are additional fees); hidden costs; spiffing up product performance (e.g., through image-altering software); and false performance claims in general.
Perhaps not surprisingly, presumably based on the types of consumer complaints received, several of these, including false performance claims and hidden fees, remain advertising law enforcement priorities for the Competition Bureau.
For a copy of the ASC’s new report, see: 2013 Consumer Perspectives on Advertising.
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