Shopping Misinformation: Red Flags

There’s always a lot to do this time of the year. When we’re out in crowded stores it can be easy to get overwhelmed and purchase things more impulsively than usual. We wanted to give you some ad tricks to watch for when you’re shopping this holiday season. Here are the tactics used in the video:

Anecdotal Evidence: This tactic uses personal stories, either from the storyteller’s life or someone else’s to change someone’s mind. (3,4)

Deciding against getting a vaccine because your friend tells you a story about someone they knew having a bad reaction is an example., Anecdotes can be powerful tools, connecting to a real person’s experience can sway our thoughts and decisions.

Appeal to Authority Fallacy: This trick uses “experts” to sell products. People tend to have a bias towards authority, our brains feel an expert or popular person knows better than us and we implicitly tend to trust them.

If a brand is using an “expert” to sell their products, pause and ask yourself why. Does their knowledge actually contribute anything to the assurance of quality or are they just using their personality to dazzle you? (5)

Greenwashing: Misleading people into thinking a company or other body is taking bigger steps to protect the environment than they are. This can distract us from taking real and measurable actions towards the climate crisis. (1,2)

An example could be, companies creating eco-packaging but the new packaging leaves a bigger environmental footprint.

Do you recognize any of these? Keep them in mind to make sure you’re really getting what you want the next time you go shopping and add them to your misinformation spotting toolkit!