Is advertising more effectvie when people like it - Essay Example

Rather than the relatively straight-forward approach to advertising taken in the days of print-only media, today’s media outlets are designed around the product or brand first and then disguised to suggest other objectives. This is not necessarily the fault of the media, but is instead a part of the reality of our system. “These media are delivered for a price. We have to pay for them, either by spending money or by spending time. Given a choice, we prefer to spend time. We spend our time paying attention to ads, and in exchange we are given infotainment” (Twitchell 469-470).

Rather than being completely the fault of the media or even of the producers, Twitchell suggests that the human condition is one in which we have been inherently materialistic. “We have always been desirous of things. We have just not had many of them until quite recently, and, in a few generations, we may return to having fewer and fewer” (Twitchell 471-472). However, in this material culture, where so many things are mass-produced in a variety of forms and substances, it is helpful to have some sort of guide to help us determine which things should be accorded the highest value and which things are not so great.

This is where advertising enters the scene and helps us to define just what is valuable and what kind of meaning or history a particular object might have. It takes advantage of this natural human tendency to want to be comfortable and to have stuff to own, trade, protect or produce. However, despite our desire for increasingly more ‘stuff’, we nevertheless insist on being entertained if we are to pay attention to the message or the products it’s associated with. As a result, if advertising is to be effective, it must first appeal to the consumer in an entertaining or meaningful way.

Marketing, in some form, seems to