How important is honesty in business today?

How is propaganda used in business today?

• How does one acquire so much positive media attention, even if unmerited? I am very curious, from a business perspective, how a company that so many do not like manages to receive so many gleaming reviews from big name businesses that consumers respect? I have been thinking about this for a while but located the perfect example of what I am attempting to ask while researching the validity of paying for "Angie's List", and online service provider who advertises that they accumulate customer reviews to help consumers locate reputable service providers in their area. Obviously much of their advertisement is paid for, but when PC World, msnbc, U.S.News, Good Morning America, and the New York Times say something is great, folks have a tendency to believe this. What's confusing is that Angies List is not considered great by most users. For instance the online comments left by users after the gleaming New York Times article, http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/your-reviews-of-angies-list/# reveals that many who have tried A. List find it to be greatly lacking in many ways, varying from the lack of customer support & refund options to the lack of useful and accurate information. Many seem to consider it nothing more than a way for customers to "vent" after receiving shoddy work. Many recommend that the site be avoided and that for reliable intelligence regarding local businesses one should "Stick with a recommendations from a friend or neighbor." The general consensus seems to be that A. List is a waste of money (I have not joined. The requirement to enter personal information before being told the amount needing to be paid, and the fact that I could not locate the membership fee even in the FAQ's section, made me wonder if this wasn't some kind of scam, so I started looking into it). My questions is... How does a business which is, according to the many unhappy humans who have actually signed up and used it (their opinions are often difficult to locate, being buried in the search results under the great reviews and the many, many ads), manage to basically utilize propaganda to present themselves to the world in a way that is not entirely truthful... or reflect how past users feel about their usefulness and trustworthiness? It's quite ironic really that A. List is a "service" whose purpose is to point out which service providers are to be trusted and which are not. It does make one wonder just how reliable the information they provide is (is it swayed in some way?) considering that their own service is not being portrayed in a way that reflects true user opinion. I hope someone answers this. I am genuinely interested in how an online service provider, or any business for that matter, manages to acquire so many gleaming reviews from the "Big Guns" when in actuality their business is less than well-received from consumers. In a nutshell: How does one utilize propaganda to promote a business, online or brick and mortar, in the world today?

• Answer:

  Check out the link bellow. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Propaganda_in_advertisements