Controlling Deceptive Advertising in China: An Overview
Published 11/1/2008
Author: Zhihong Gao
View this contentExecutive Summary
Deceptive advertising has been a key topic of advertising regulation research. However, the existing literature focuses primarily on the Western experience, and practices in developing countries have received little attention. As an initial effort to investigate the topic in the context of an emerging market, this article applies Petty and Kopp’s framework to examines how China controls deceptive advertising from five aspects: initiation, interpretation, deception, verification, and remediation. Chinese advertising regulation is governed by several statutes and administrative regulations; self-regulation plays only a limited role. In this context, China’s deception control differs from the U.S. system on a few fronts, thus posing serious challenges to U.S. firms operating in the Chinese market. To a certain extent, Chinese advertising regulation is stringent: It adopts a broad definition of advertising; bans puffery and restricts the use of advertising techniques such as testimonials, comparisons, statistics, and guarantees of effectiveness; extends liability to include not only the advertiser and agency but also media, retailers, and social institutions; and allows individual consumers to challenge deceptive advertising in the civil court. In addition, the regulator advocates absolute truth in advertising and does not require materiality in determining deception. Although working with limited resources, the Chinese regulator handles both serious and frivolous cases. Problematic advertising claims in China fall largely into two groups: (1) unsubstantiated, clearly deceptive claims that are equally unacceptable in the United States and (2) claims such as puffery, comparisons, and statistics, which are okay in the United States but are prohibited or restricted by Chinese law. Foreign advertisers often run into trouble because of the second type of claims. This is especially true for global brands that lean toward a standardized, hard-sell approach in their international advertising—in their cases, puffery defense and verification are rarely accepted by the Chinese regulator. To avoid the pitfalls of the Chinese regulatory system, foreign advertisers and agencies must suspend their own assumptions about deceptive advertising, take a fresh look at the commonly used advertising techniques in the West, and readily adjust their advertising claims in China when necessary.
Biography
Zhihong Gao is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. She holds a PhD in Communications from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Her research focuses on international advertising, cross-cultural consumer behavior, and advertising regulation. She has published articles in Journal of Advertising, Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, and Advertising & Society Review.
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Volume 27, Number 2, Fall 2008
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