CRITICAL THINKING ON ADVERTISEMENTS
Bari and Abbas (2011) asserts that companies seek to attract customers by using large sums of money for advertisements (p. 153). Capitalist try to make huge profits as possible and, therefore, some may use fallacious and misleading statements to attract customers.
In the Huntington post, the IBM Company advert calls for one to “Get $500 in Servers, Storage, Networking, and More,” and requires one to “order now.” Although this advert is clear and precise, it quickly appeals to the authority that the company presumes to have in the technology market. The advert on the top corner in Capital letters identifies the company as the SOFTLAYER, an IBM company without any further information on the same. From this perspective, it tends to assume that clients would believe it just because it is from a reputable company. Additionally, it tends to make clients would get more that what they have stated. That raises the curiosity of the potential customers and hence click on the link. Nevertheless, the more might only be an insignificant service that makes the advert deceptive.
The “Fastrack advert” claims that one can get Easy Pickups Flat at 20% off. The advertiser seeks to exploit the public from the common belief that anything with a discount is cheaper as opposed to those without. Typically, one expects discounted items to cost lesser than the original prices. However, in most cases, the firms might first hike the prices and then give the discount to make them look cheap. That does not reduce the original cost and, therefore, is misleading and makes people fall for the hasty generalization i.e. lonely fact (“Fallacies: alphabetic list (full list),” 2015). The use of the word “easy” makes one believe that one does not need to struggle to get the products. Bari A. and Abbas R. Z. (2011, Sep.). ADVERTISEMENT & ISLAM: A MUSLIM WORLD PERSPECTIVE. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [15 2-157].Retrieved on July 23, 2015 from http://www.ajbmr.com/articlepdf/AJBMR_16_27.pdf
Fallacies: alphabetic list (full list). (2015). Retrieved on July 23, 2015 from http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/fallacies/fallacies_alpha.htm