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Meanwhile, stealth and undercover marketing are also prohibited. For example, you can’t have product placements in films and TV shows without telling the viewer. Meanwhile, you’re not allowed to disguise ads as articles or videos where someone pretends to be ‘genuinely’ interested in a product or service.
Aside from companies being more open, direct, and honest about what they’re providing, it also falls upon us to manage our own expectations… at least in part. Even if an ad or package is completely honest about what you’ll get upon purchase, we can still feel disappointed if we had vastly different expectations. For whatever reason!
The gap between our expectations and the results is what leads to disappointment. Many of us know from experience that it’s best to have very low expectations and then end up being pleasantly surprised. After all, it beats being overhyped and then feeling as though you’ve been let down, no matter how great the product/service/experience/quintuple chocolate chip cookie was.
At the same time, we shouldn’t manage our expectations into oblivion. It’s good to have standards! It’s what keeps us dignified and reminds companies everywhere that they have to provide quality. However, those standards have to be somewhat realistic. You can’t expect perfection around every corner. You can, however, expect to get exactly what’s on the packaging in Japan!