Fifty years of deceptive marketing research: A systematic review and future research agenda

Abstract

Deceptive marketing practices have continued to emerge as a persistent and difficult challenge that affects marketing exchanges and government agents alike. While thorough reviews have previously emerged to explore each of the multifaceted areas of deceptive marketing practices, the current review seeks a more holistic perspective. Utilizing an exhaustive systematic review of peer‐reviewed journal articles (n = 92), the goal of the current work is threefold: (1) review and integrate existing research, (2) identify common themes to develop a comprehensive framework for deception, and (3) map future avenues for research. To accomplish this, the literature was reviewed to identify specific eras pivotal to the 50‐year evolution of deceptive marketing, which revealed several notable observations: a continuously evolving definition, an insufficient depth of theoretical underpinnings, and a vast breadth of construct diversity. After providing a clear definition for deceptive marketing, a new framework is proposed to view the deception literature based on a thematic approach (advertising, ethics & public policy, deceptive marketing tactics, covert marketing communication) encompassed by exogenous factors (posttruth phenomena, impact proximity, social consensus, and exchange type). Future research accompanies the new robust framework in the hopes that the current research will guide future researchers in expanding the domain of deceptive marketing research cohesively.