Advertising
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In todays society, one must consider – Is there any advantage of advertising? In many cases, it is only disadvantage – an annoying hindrance in our daily lives. It gets on our nerves, distorts the truth, and adds to the cost of the product. Advertising is designed for one purpose – to sell. To achieve this goal, advertises are willing to stretch and distort the truth, just to convincing people to buy their product. For example, an advertiser may convince buyers to purchase their product by stating that has been tested and found superior. In reality, the product is not likely to be better than any other – the tests themselves doubtlessly conducted by the promoting company – conducted to ensure at least something is superior about the product, even if it is only the color. These advertisements are worded carefully so that they are telling the “literal truth” – the truth is exactly what the words say, although people misinterpret the message by using conversational logic as something different – something better. By using ingenious tactics like these, the populace is deceived into buying a product that may not do what is required, or a product that a buyer may have never really needed. This is why advertising is a bad thing, for our society.
My opinion on that issue is that advertising is not beneficial, but harmful to the consumers. First of all, it does not really inform the consumers, but persuades them. Persuasion is actually the step of advertising that induces purchase. This is managed by techniques that appeal to feelings, like love or hate (Rotzoll and Haefner 100). For example some advertisements say that the firms take care of the consumers by creating safest products. This venture is usually used in car advertisements. As Eric Clark puts it very well “advertising exists to inform – but even more so to persuade” (Clark 15). Also, as opposed to the promotion through personal contact, advertising does not involve pressure to the audience. For that reason, the last does not “fight” the message. So, it is easier for the advertiser to hand over the message (Dommermuth 44). Moreover, as McConnell and Brue put it, “material wants have a high reproduction rate. The rapid introduction of new products “whets our appetites”, and extensive advertising persuades us that we need items we might not otherwise buy” (McConnell and Brue 22).
Furthermore, advertisers do not tell all the truth. Because advertising is not journalism but salesmanship, is not obligated to tell the whole story (advantages and disadvantages of the products). For example, in car advertising, some advertisers often say that their cars are fast, safe, and luxurious, but they do not mention that these cars are the most expensive in their category. As a former director of promotion for the Time magazine, Nicholas Samstag puts it “the half truth is the essence of advertising” (Clark 15). That s why advertising has devaluated some words like “real” or “natural” which mean whatever each advertiser wants them to mean. For example, there are chocolate chips with “all natural” ingredients, “all natural” cosmetics and so forth (Clark 18). So we see the advertisement of “Kinder” chocolate saying that has only natural ingredients, without mentioning the preservatives that it contains. In addition, advertisers trying to paste up more appealing images to the products, they give them an added vague value. Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon, often says that in the laboratory he makes cosmetics but in the store he “sells dreams”. Many products may be transformed into glamorous, full of colors and image products. A very good example is chocolate mints After Eight, which are mass produced and affordable for children to purchase with their own pocket money, and they have a luxury image (Clark 25).
Moreover, advertising has been dominated in the media in such a way that has the ability to be all invasive. Professor of Advertising, Kim Rotzoll, has a good explanation. Advertisers, he says, are not in a position to enforce, but they have the power to dominate by transmitting us their messages through our television programs, through our magazines etc (Clark 15). Besides, according to Eric Clark “advertising is far from impotent or harmless; it is a mere mirror image. Its power is real, and on the brink of a great increase. Not the power to brainwash overnight, but the power to create subtle and real change. The power to prevail” (Clark 20). So still in the postindustrial society, advertisers produce consumers by controlling their ideas and beliefs (OBarr 203). Thats why the Times say that advertising works – without our knowing that it is working on us. Good advertising works – with still greater stealth (Clark 13).
There are a number of proven ways to persuade the consumer that he or she needs the product being advertised. These methods of persuasion, instead of concentrating on the actual product, usually concentrate on the benefits that will be brought to the consumer. These benefits may include the hope of more money and better jobs, popularity and personal prestige, praise from others, more comfort, social advancement, improved appearance, or better health. For example, an automobile advertisement, as well as mentioning the mechanical attributes of the car, would most likely focus on the excitement, prestige, and social advancement it may bring the buyer. This social advancement is very often sexual, or involving attraction of the other sex- so the car advertisement may also mention the glamorous women/men that the consumer will attract with his/her fancy car. Advertising has been blamed for a great variety of negative social impacts. One of the major criticisms received by advertising is that it forces people to buy things they dont really need, often by projecting negative emotions such as fear, anxiety or guilt upon the consumer. It is claimed that advertising plays with our basic human emotions and takes advantage of them, using them as merely another technique to sell goods or services.
Advertising also encourages people to buy products by making them think that purchasing and consuming are the major activities of their lives. It is said to also evoke fears of inferiority upon