The Power of Advertising

It is a business that manipulates people in order to accomplish its goals, which it does quite effectively. Our society is one with many fears, and because of this advertising will continue to find new and different ways of exploiting them in order to market their goods. And as long as the American people continue to buy into it, they will be successful

The changes in society would showcase the powerful force that advertising has on society, which radically affects the very way we think, the concepts we have and the association we make. While researching the field of advertising I found that it’s extremely broad and diverse. In simple terms I found that an advertisement is simply a public notice intended to convey information and attract consumers. Advertising has two basic purposes: to inform and to persuade while both are distinct, they both work hand in hand. According to Gustafson (2001):” Advertisers often assume that their influence on society is benign, because they assume to be a sovereign rational self.” (p. 203) With this thought, advertising is expressed as being the vehicle of getting products to the consumers to fulfill their wants, but that it avoids creating desire or shaping the consumer’s affection.

To become part of this social class is the aspiration of many people. However, its pursuit is negatively affecting many lives physically and financially. With multiple ways to engage the public; mainstream media giants skillfully exploit the nation’s social impulse through vast advertising. Their aim is to influence and accustom the public’s perception of success for capital gain. Becon Press Ben H. Bagdikian, described Chuck Blore, a partner in the advertising firm Chuck Blore & Don Ruchman Inc, as saying “Advertising is the art of arresting the human intelligence just long enough to get money from it.”(as cited in Media and Advertisements, Global issues, 2008).

Trying to immediately convert our society to Walden Two would be disastrous, even chaotic. What we can do, however, is take apart Walden Two; find the aspects that are most needed in our society today and work towards applying them. By working toward these, we become closer to the good society, even if we never fully reach it. One of the most hazardous aspects of our society is that we are a consumer society. People are driven to spend money; the advertising industry has become a very successful and profitable industry by effectively convincing people to spend money.

If it weren't for advertising the whole society would be completely different. The economy, for instance, would be dropped into a crisis without the adverts and all the publicity that fuel the desire for limitless business. Advertising is an essential type of speech that communicates important information to the public. According to George Stigler (1986), advertising is “an immensely powerful instrument for the elimination of ignorance-comparable in force to the use of the book instead of the oral discourse to communicate knowledge.” Therefore, small Emirati businesses should depend more on advertising in order to benefit the business, consumer and society. Benefits of advertising- businesses One reason advertising is used is because of its importance for any new business.

Analysis of Bad Ad In the media today, we are easily tricked by advertising. We are manipulated into believing we need to purchase the latest product sold by companies to be happy and achieve high social status. Media uses tools like appeals, claims, fallacies, weasel words, etc. to trick their audience into believing they must have their product. In today’s society, companies are able to pretty much sell consumer’s anything they want, as long as they can convince them they need it.

It is undeniable that advertising has a major impact on American society. It feeds capitalism and powers the cycle of material ownership and financial benefit; however, in doing so, consumers are manipulated by unethical tactics and filled with unnecessary desire. When is comes to advertising, there is a thin line between information and manipulation. Although companies spend a great deal of money and effort enlightening the world on the existence of a new product that could potentially improve the lives of their consumers, the messages behind these advertisements “can make us unsatisfied with who we are and greedy for what we don’t have” (source D). Faulty advertisements that i...

There are many different kinds of advertising existed, each of them is basically used to propagate the products in order to promote the consumption. Thus, the situation makes people be induced and became crazy for buying things, which gradually brings lots of finance and business problems that are not easily resolved. In general, the ideas of culture jamming and remix culture are the main reasons that anti-advertising or subvertisement have been created. Therefore, Lee shows that capitalism makes the consumption become out of control, although the commercialized business model itself is also very creative in compare to the old days. Advertising culture is devastating and Lee tries to show the readers what mass media has been doing.

Today, the retail market is an integral part of economic development because it provides abundant power for the country’s interests. To succeed, retailers must usually update new information and techniques, or find different ways for attract customers from using cameras; loyalty cards of surveys that could help retailers compete with rivals. Most of people believe that the surveillance of consumers by retail anthropologists is manipulative and unethical. In fact, the retail anthropologists should survey to customers for many reasons such as access to customers demand, change and organize marketing strategies, and bring benefits to customers. Accessing to customers demand is the first reason could make surveillance of consumers is not manipulative

Companies are making researches about their consumers, notably about how the attention of clients is divided in front of advertisement, in order to improve the effectiveness of their marketing plans. Moreover, this essay praises that retailers collect too much data on people in order to resell personals information to different branches of business without people’s approbation. The inherent lack of security concerning personal information is becoming a real issue. In fact, marketers embellished the reality in order to drive people to consumption. They are motivating to increase their profits.