Advertising has been defined as the most powerful, persuasive, and manipulative tool that firms have to control consumers all over the world. It is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Its impacts created on the society throughout the years has been amazing, especially in this technology age. Influencing people’s habits, creating false needs, distorting the values and priorities of our society with sexism and feminism, advertising has become a poison snake ready to hunt his prey. However, on the other hand, advertising has had a positive effect as a help of the economy and society. In the business market, the main and principal key to get profit is by the active consume of a product in the marketplace. Nevertheless, firms have taken advantage of that and have created false needs to consumers. According to Leiss, “The only true need, it would appear, are for nourishment, clothing, and housing.” In other words, he states that people can live without television, internet, IPod, and so forth. But the impact of commercials have made people feel the necessity of something else than food and shelter. Commercials works through the human emotions and vanity and it appeals toward the psychologically domain turning into a temptation for weak mind people. For instance, if a person is at home watching T.V., very comfortable and suddenly, a commercial promoting any kind of food and drink comes up, that person will be hungry and thirsty in a couple of minutes. The advertising influenced his mind, provoking an involuntary reaction to do what the commercial induced him to do. Much of human satisfactions take place in nonmate... ... middle of paper ... ...maintain that advertising exists primarily to create demand among consumers. People have certain types of wants and needs, and they are perfectly capable to discover it for themselves. People today just need food, clothing and shelter everything else is superfluous and additional stuff. Advertising are able to create demand that would not exist just by manipulating people’s min and emotions. Advertising is master in manipulate reality and fantasy, by creating “magic show.” It is true that advertising has been a powerful mechanism that distorts our whole society’s values and priorities. On the other hand, advertising educate people about several issues. In political terms, it moves mass of people and persuade them to vote for a candidate. And, of course, in terms of economy, contributes in the development through the consumption of the costumer.
Advertisements are one of many things that Americans cannot get away from. Every American sees an average of 3,000 advertisements a day; whether it’s on the television, radio, while surfing the internet, or while driving around town. Advertisements try to get consumers to buy their products by getting their attention. Most advertisements don’t have anything to do with the product itself. Every company has a different way of getting the public’s attention, but every advertisement has the same goal - to sell the product. Every advertisement tries to appeal to the audience by using ethos, pathos, and logos, while also focusing on who their audience is and the purpose of the ad. An example of this is a Charmin commercial where there is a bear who gets excited when he gets to use the toilet paper because it is so soft.
The United States has come to a point where a person cannot go for very long without being greeted with some sort of advertisement. Advertisements are everywhere, no matter how secluded of a life someone may live. They appear on most web pages of the Internet, show up on cellphones during applications, and are plastered along roadways. It has become second nature for most people to tune out the advertisements that are thrown in their faces at practically every turn. Our country is especially ridden with advertisements compared to others, as it has become a multi-billion industry for the country. Fueled by a materialistic frame of mind, the population’s desire for the latest product keeps the advertising field thriving.
In order to stop the negative effects of advertising on society, the general public must become informed on the complex tactics and manipulations advertisers are using on the American people and action must be taken to
Is advertising the ultimate means to inform and help us in our everyday decision-making or is it just an excessively powerful form of mass deception used by companies to persuade their prospects and customers to buy products and services they do not need? Consumers in the global village are exposed to increasing number of advertisement messages and spending for advertisements is increasing accordingly.
Food and drink, cars, alcohol, cigarettes — “the average American is exposed to some 500 ads daily” (Fowles 540). How do advertisers influence people to purchase products? According to Jib Fowles in “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals”, people are attracted to what they see, “many ads seem to be saying, ‘If you this need, then this product will help satisfy it’” (541). People convincingly buy products because they believe what the ad is illustrating. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen’s portfolio consists of ads that demonstrate various motives (556-594). Based on Fowles’ article, although advertising has some negative aspects, advertising influences people positively by fulfilling the needs to nurture, achieve, and for affiliation.
Many companies spend over millions of dollars advertising every year, and these advertisements influence how an individual thinks and acts in a society. It becomes a significant aspect of our lives whether it has come to our acknowledgment or not. It influences us to the extent we believe the information presented in the media are “normal”. To be precise, advertisements create and define the social norms. These concepts are strongly built into my mind since a young age, especially the gender roles between men and women.
Advertisements have an enormous effect on the collective conscious of consumers today. Advertisers, through advertisements, have the ability to manufacture a world that may seem real to the consumer. In these manufactured realities, advertisers entice consumers to buy products specifically marketed to them.
Ads (or advertisements) are everywhere. These messages come from different platforms, and they are aimed at convincing people to purchase goods, services, and ideas. From its simple beginnings in ancient Greece and Rome, advertising is now multimillion-dollar industry. Companies make huge investments, utilize sophisticated technologies, and make use of very persuasive language to market existing products (Green, 2012). The automobile industry made excellent use of advertisements. According to Georgano (2013) “the advertising industry and the automobile grew up side by side and each was a major stimulus to the other” (para 1).
Advertising plays many roles in the mind of consumers. It informs, it educates, it persuade. Without advertising it would be difficult to decide what we need to buy and what are the options available in the market. In the modern world everyone is influenced by advertising and the forms of promotion. Private sector as well as Public sector is still trying to learn how they can communicate efficiently and effectively with target group or audience. Consumer is trying to find various ways to avoid marketers, but the market is constantly looking for new ways to reach audience.
In conclusion, there are many science experts induct that advertisements can take an advantage in sending health message to communities. In reducing the social evil like smoking, drinking and drugs abuse, advertisements are widely used as anti-campaigns and they are also received many positive responses for short term and long term consequence. Surdyka (2006) believes that advertisements have influence on target audiences not only in the past but also in the present. She recommends that the more intensively advertisements perform, the higher recognition of them.
Nowadays, advertisements are everywhere embedded in our daily life. They are powerful resources that inform people the latest news about a particular product or brand in many different ways. Most of the people are being able to get more information and detail of a product from media, radio stations, newspapers and internet. Even though advertising is a big informative source, it also can be considered as a marketing tool to control the mind and desires of the consumers to manipulate and persuade them to buy things they do not need.
Nowadays, advertising is a very big business. Very often is the major means of competing among firms. Furthermore, supporters of advertising claim that it brings specific benefits for consumers.
To sum up, advertising is one of the important ways to help the marketers as well as consumers. It is good for the companies as they can attract more consumers and as a result increase the profit of the company. It also has many benefits for the consumers as they can raise their knowledge and awareness and accordingly improve their lifestyle. Conversely, it may have negative effects on consumer behavior by creating unhealthy behavior such as alcohol consumption and lowering self-confidence through beauty advertisements. According to what has been written above, obviously, advertisements may have both positive and negative effects on consumer behavior.
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. Everywhere we turn we forcibly encounter advertisements and very little of the ads we encounter is because of our wants. Theodore (1970): “As more and more products entered the battle for consumer’s fleeting dollar, advertisings has increased in boldness and volume.” (p 84). Realizing the amount of products and services that must be sold, the method of selling such as the extreme exaggeration and deception is not a surprise.
Similarly, numerous advertisements on mass media has also created adverse impacts on society. Critics substantiate this fact by giving argument that advertising of expensive products cause sense of depravity in the poor people. In addition, daily thousands of advertisements are destined to an individual through different mind process of a person.