Damage Control: Limiting the Fall-Out from Deceptive Advertising

Deceptive claims in advertising can cause serious damage to a firm’s reputation. Prior research revealed that consumers who recognized deception in an advertisement in turn generally would develop a negative perception of advertising.

Damage Control: Limiting the Fall-Out from Deceptive Advertising

Katherine L. Twomey, John G. Knight and Lisa S. McNeill

Otago University

INTRODUCTION

Deceptive advertising typically generates a highly adverse public reaction (Fry and McDougall, 1974; Greyser and Bauer, 1966). In this article, the authors examine how highly respected company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) attempted to recover from humiliation caused by two 14-year-old schoolgirls whose science-fair project revealed that GSK’s television advertisements were deceptive. The authors discuss how GSK faced the dilemma by attempting to recover trust with a televised apology, and they derive lessons for practitioners in the context...

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