FCA looks at consumer behaviour and advertising

FCA has published an occasional paper that looks at the behaviour of consumers and the consequences it has on their reaction to financial promotions. The paper considers:

• how consumers will look for and find promotions
• how ways of presenting information may play on consumers’ behavioural biases and have the potential to mislead
• how certain techniques encourage consumers to rely on emotional reactions, rather than reason, and the problems this can cause.

The paper looks at how behavioural science can show that consumers draw conclusions from advertisements which are in fact wrong, and suggests areas that are most susceptible to misinterpretation and therefore to being misleading.