Advertising/Consumption - Research Paper Example

? Advertising is basically a paid form of communication. The primary objective of advertising is to increase consumption by providing people information regarding the product. Advertising persuades people to believe what advertisers want them to believe. Various organizations and politicians make use of advertising to sell and promote their product and to convince voters. Advertising can be done through various forms; few of these include newspaper, television, magazines, billboards and internet. Though, advertising does positively affect people in a way that it helps create awareness about new products in the market and allow individuals to differentiate it from other products in order to make the right decision. But, the truth lies in the fact that the aim of advertising is to benefit organizations by increasing consumption which in turn raises their profits. Therefore, it will not be wrong to say that advertising have more of a negative effect on viewers than positive. Thesis Statement: Advertising have more of a negative effect on viewers than positive. Many debates have taken place on the negative as well as positive effects of advertisements on people. Few believe that advertisements are advantageous as they create awareness among individuals and help in differentiating between other similar products and others argue that most of the advertisements are done to misguide consumers in order to sell their product. This unethical and deceptive approach of misguiding consumers adopted by various companies can harm individuals in long-term. Are you aware of the latest advertisements made to sell the products like food, hand bags, cell phones, accessories, electronic products and home appliances? Are you aware of the latest fashion presently prevailing in the society? Do you have latest updates about the television ads taglines and jingles? Majority people today are well-aware of this information as most of their time is spent in front of television which is why they easily fall into the trap of television ads unconsciously. In other words, advertisements are directed at people’s subconscious level, negatively affecting them. “Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.” (Leacock). Let’s take an example of one of the current advertisement in which a doctor (who is not a real one) is recommending a particular brand of toothpaste. This advertisement in spite being untrue does not stop people from buying the product which indicates the negative effect of it on individual’s subconscious level. Individuals that are majorly affected by these advertisements are especially young children who easily fall for these fake claims. It takes no time for these advertisers to communicate their message successfully to them, and people landing up in shopping malls to buy these products the next day, confirms its effectiveness. Many believe that the effect of TV ads is not a serious issue as they are not prominent. But they forget the fact that these advertisements control their unconscious mind. Advertisements are not only shown during commercial breaks but are also included as a part of TV programs by the television actors. The products are endorsed by popular and likable celebrities to sell their products as people try to copy their favorite celebrities in many ways and wish to look like them. Several studies have been performed on the “effect of advertisements on viewer” and the outcome of these surveys and researches clearly confirms that advertising has negatively affected people to a great extent. For instance, more people today are inclined towards drinking alcohol rather than water and healthy drinks and juices. This is just because their favorite TV actors drink it in ads and programs and alcohol is publicized as a means to success and happiness in many advertisements. Some advertisements publicize alcohol as ”Absolute Magic," other as "Paradise found," and few as "Fairy tales can come true.” These claims about alcohol are just untrue as “10 per cent of all deaths in the United States - including half of all murders and at least one quarter of all suicides - are related to alcohol?” (Jean). Therefore, it will not be wrong to say that advertisements have more of a negative effect on people than positive. Some of these effects or factors leading to negative effects on people will be discussed in this paper. This paper will include three sections, section one will discuss the negative effects of advertisement on our society as a whole, section two will discuss the effect of advertisement on children and section three will discuss the use of advertisement by politicians. SECTION 1 Negative effects of advertisements on our society Majority believe that advertisements create awareness about product features and benefits, which is true but, what about the hidden cost of the product? These people are unaware of the additional cost that is charged to them. In addition to the product cost itself which includes the packaging, facility and machinery cost, advertisement cost is also added to the final product price of which the customer is not aware. Therefore, advertising financially affects people as they have to pay for its cost which is not at all reasonable and understandable. One advantage of advertisement is that it helps individuals differentiate between various products available in the market but this is only beneficial for those belonging to the elite class, what about the majority? There are many individuals who cannot afford these expensive products and extensive advertisement increases their desire to buy such products. Thus, if their income does not allow them to buy the product, it leads to inferiority which can leave a negative impact on their lives. In addition to monetary difficulties, sexual exploitation of perfect women body in advertisements also leads to inferiorly in an ordinary women or girl. False claims made by companies is another problem faced by individuals. There are very few famous brands that are known for fulfilling their promises. But, majority brands in order to create hype among general public make false claims through advertisements which result in disappointment after the product is bought by the consumer. This not only leads to money wastage but also leads to displeasure. Even as per law, any claim made by the advertisers should be supported by some evidence or statistic. However, what companies do in order to attract customers, make false claims in accordance to their own convenience and to promote their brand. To do this, they either exaggerate product features or make vague and unclear statements that sound great to the consumer. Therefore, advertisements can be deceptive especially for population today as majority spends most of their time watching television. In addition to making false claims, companies today also believe in doing extensive advertisements. Getting message across the public is essential but doing extensive advertisements is just a strategy towards brainwashing viewer’s unconscious minds. They do this by placing posters everywhere, using eye-catching words and pictures until the customer starts believing in few things. This is their tactic to hypnotize viewers and make trends that customer is unable to ignore. Advertisers know that making public believe that the product will make them satisfied and happy will help in increasing their profit. A time comes when the customer gets addicted to the product and it leads this over consumption which in turn benefits the company. Extensive advertisements can also result in several other negative effects on people like credit card debt, increase in children’s unwanted demands and sexual exploitation. Furthermore, advertisements also create unwanted needs. Earlier advertisements were done to cater the needs of individuals but today advertisements are done to create unnecessary needs. By creating hype and excitement among both children and parents, these advertisements have forced them to enter into a never ending loop of purchasing more and more items. “Advertising is the art of convincing viewers to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.” (Will Roger) The focus of companies is to promote products that they feel will be appreciated by the audience without realizing that some products can be harmful for human health. Several researches has shown that children as well as adults are more inclined towards unhealthy options like chips, alcohol, cigarettes and soft drinks rather than healthy ones. Advertisers take good advantage of it and try to promote such products in a healthy manner. Moreover, advertisements can also affect small sellers. Since big companies have the budget to do excess advertising, they are able to create awareness among individuals. However, smaller companies in spite of having better products have to suffer due to less or no marketing of their product. As a result of less marketing people are not much aware of their products because of which bigger companies become a barrier in their success. Last but not the least, advertising also negatively effects various forms of arts like, movies, and games. No creativity is seen on television today as the purpose is just to sell their product. Today an hour movie takes two hours to finish because of advertisements due to which viewer’s interest is lost. Same is the case with cricket and football games which are also followed by never ending minutes of commercial torture. Another issue is that the advertisements designed today are completely unimaginative and unoriginal and require creativity and originality. Such advertisements effects the image of the company and at the same time waste a lot of time of viewers which could had been spent watching fun and interesting programs. SECTION 2 Effect of advertisements on children Above discussed are points explaining the negative effects of advertising on our society. There are also several disadvantages of advertising that badly affects children. Few of these are discussed as follows. We have seen that adults get into the trap of advertisements easily, so children are in their growing age and it is much easier task for the advertisers to attract them. This leads to increase in unrealistic expectations, wastage of money and highly impact their self image negatively. In other words, advertisements play with children’s emotions, moral values and completely change their view about live, leaving a negative impact on their self-image. Various child development experts also believe that advertising is terribly affecting children’s welfare. Some of these specialists argue that psychology related information is now being used to promote products and making ad campaigns, which is unethical. This strategy helps selling their product but has a negative impact on children. Steps by different psychology associations are being taken in order to apply restrictions to such acts. Apart from children’s welfare, advertisements also have an effect on their body image. Since children now days are spending most of their time watching TV, they feel much more influenced by the messages in the advertisements than those given by their teachers and family members, thus resulting in negative effect on children’s body image and development progress. Today, parents are much more concerned about marketing strategies of adult brands marketed towards children. These brands try to make children familiar with their brand from their younger age. For example, in the “Porshe” advertisement, they have shown a young school going child identifying the car as an essence of style and success. There are several other similar examples like these including dolls for girls promoting make-up brand, HO race track promoting a car brand and board games promoting credit card. The purpose of these advertisements is to make children customers of such brands and products at their growing age and also to make sure that their brand loyalty is built at an early age. SECTION 3 Use of advertisements by Politicians Not only companies, political parties have also been making use of advertisements throughout the years. Different techniques used by politicians include, speeches, rallies, public meetings and political advertising. The most used approach today is political advertising. The purpose of political advertising is to convince public in order to get maximum votes. Several researches have shown that campaign expenditures have grown a lot throughout the years. Political advertising is done using various forms like images, banners and negative advertising. Earlier, politicians made use of images at the start of campaign in order to build up their good image and then made use of negative advertising to attack their rival parties. But, today the trend has changed and politicians are increasingly making use of advertising. These politicians make false promises and claims to get votes from the general public. Their focus is more on highlighting the weaknesses of the opponent party rather than conveying their own strength. Majority believe that political advertising negatively affects the truthfulness of the message conveyed to the public. Politicians convince us (general public) to vote in favor of them by playing intelligently with our emotions. They do this by using emotional slogans and pictures in their campaigns. The influential force of political advertisements like other commercial advertisements is to make use of half truths and untrue logic which makes us think that we are responding on the basis of philosophical information rather than emotional pictures. According to Edgar A.Shoaff, “Advertising is the art of making whole lies out of half truths.” (Wdgar A. Shoaff). Since politician are now aware that public’s voting decision is based on emotions and not logical reasons, therefore they spend millions of money on advertising and making such images. These political parties rather than talking about prevailing issues in the country and their solutions, they mostly make emotional appeals to general public. Factual and truth based speeches are very rare in today’s world. These advertisements are designed to influence or convince a common man to vote. Politicians usually talk about opponent’s personal issues and about his own good character rather than politics. Advertisements display false picture which makes difficult for the voters to decide who to vote. Though, there are several individuals who do not fall into this trap, but the truth is that majority of us do fall into it. Selecting a President is an important decision which should be taken intelligently and not emotionally. These emotional methods are influencing a lot of voters which is why millions and billions of dollars are being spent for designing these emotional ads. We, ourselves are responsible for it by responding positively to it. Therefore, it’s high time now that we should start asking for facts and true information in order to make our voting decision. For this it is essential to have knowledge about the steps that will be taken by the candidate on the prevailing issues. Keeping in view the above mentioned points, it can be clearly concluded that advertisers had forgot their purpose long time back. Advertisements are made for the purpose of increasing consumers without realizing the actual purpose of it. Advertisements are affecting individual of every age group including adults, kids and teens. As a result, sense of worth is gradually diminishing. Consumers instead of purchasing the product by looking at its quality and value tend to purchase it because it looks good on the celebrity endorsing the product. As rightly said by Will Rogers, “If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising then they wouldn't have to advertise them.” (Will Rogers). Therefore, it is suggested that when next time you plan for going shopping or notice an advertisement, it is essential to ask some questions to yourself like, weather that product is actually a necessity for you? And is that product really worth it price? Though, the negative effects of advertising are increasing day by day, people still support it. 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