How Advertisement Manipulates Customers Choices and Spending Habits - Essay Example

Argumentative Essay How Advertisement Manipulates Customer’s Choices and Spending Habits? There was a time when advertisement was considered to be an expense for the companies. But the trend has changed now. Advertisement is considered an investment these days. In fact it is an investment because without advertisement customers may not know about the product. Some advertisements are informative and some manipulative. Advertisements serve the purpose of informing us about the availability of products or services. Some advertisements are manipulative, because they show false image of the products and services that are being offered. This can lead customer to a doubtful situation where he thinks something else about the product/service and ends up purchasing something that is entirely different from the advertised product. We know advertisement is an investment only when it is not a false advertisement. It should not manipulate the customer’s desires and spending. Advertisement can actually modify the spending habits and customer choices by convincing its audience in a manner that may be ethically unacceptable. These days companies tend to use manipulative advertisements. Some ads are very informative; e.g TV ads about the yellow pages, information about supermarkets etc. These ads may be a little bit manipulative but customers end up purchasing a good because of the information provided by these ads (Phillips 14). For example, there are some ads like Mountain Dew (beverage), which portray the ability of humans to act in ways that are beyond ordinary. Now this is just a false manipulation that can literally affect the perception of viewers. But some authors argue that manipulative advertisement is the second name of persuasive advertisement which is a big source of forcing the customers to purchase the product. In other words here the marketer is hitting/targeting the customers emotionally. Once you persuade a person emotionally, selling the product becomes easy. In manipulative advertising the marketers are doing the same. Seeing this idea, manipulative advertisement becomes objectionable. It cannot be termed as the ethical one because it is persuading the customers in unacceptable manner. Some manipulative advertisements can be in the form of celebrity marketing especially female model. This makes the product so special to the customers, when they think of it they say this celebrity uses it, I must use this (Dachis n.p.). Here again the customers are being hit emotionally by getting the celebrity in to the product. This motivates the general public especially the youth to a great extent. In this case they are inventing the feelings which you as a customer never had before. They make you feel like that hero/model who uses that product. The purpose of all this is to make the consumer feel like being the person that is being used as a character in the advertisement. There can be one another great source of manipulation for the companies; that is music. Music is utilized for the purpose of stimulating the feelings of customers. Many fast food chains like MacDonald utilize music to attract their potential customers. The purpose is to fill the background with music while allowing a superior experience of eating. This kind of advertisement may have long lasting impact on the customers since they not only recall the taste after leaving the premises of such restaurants, but also remember the overall experience; and that includes music in the background. Approaches like this help businesses achieve their sale targets more conveniently (Iannone n.p.). On more thing we all may have noticed that many companies tend to give time period for the product/service; this creates a sense of urgency for the customers to buy the product immediately. These all are manipulating tactics where companies make use of human emotions to achieve their target of sales. Advertisement exists everywhere; whether on TV, Internet or between two different individuals in the form of direct marketing. The point people don’t realize is that it is manipulative. The reason for this claim is the fact that advertising makes a person believe that they need a certain product or service despite the fact that they are aware about being trapped (Alykeev). These feelings are created by the advertisers. Certain types of advertising make use of body image as a means of creating dissatisfaction among the viewers. Presenting obese characters in the presence of thin models to highlight the importance of being slim and smart is one such tactic. Similarly, portrayal of models suffering from skin conditions like melasma is another such advertising technique. Advertisements like these create a feeling of dissatisfaction among the viewers regarding their own body image. Those who are obese, start to picture themselves as being slim and smart like the models shown in advertisements. Those who have sun-burnt skins seek to look beautiful like the girls depicted in advertisements. This exploitation of feelings about the self and the arousal of dissatisfaction as a tool to motivate purchase of the product being offered may not be regarded as ethical. In business it is thought and stated that customers are the king. I believe it is true. But keeping customers aware of each and every aspect of the product truly is a real business and that type of advertising would be termed as informational advertising. As in that case customers would be getting true information about the product and then on the basis of that information customers would go on to purchase the product. If this pattern of advertisement is followed for extended periods of time, there is a hope that more and more customers will get convinced. Convincing more customers may translate into more and more sales and ultimately into huge profits. However, this pattern of advertisement demands extreme patience and huge funding due to the reason that customer’s get convinced very slowly. For new businesses, it is often not possible to wait for longer periods due to the limited budget and earnings during the period immediately following their inauguration. Therefore, most businesses adopt the short-cut approach of presenting fake details about their products to the consumers, to get immediate results and sales. For this reason it is justified to assert that advertisement can actually influence the spending habit of viewers. References Alykeev, Dan. "Advertising: Information or Manipulation?" English Composition II - Group Identities. N.p., 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 12 Dec. 2014. Dachis, Adam. "How Advertising Manipulates Your Choices and Spending Habits (and What to Do About It)." Lifehacker. N.p., 25 July 2011. Web. 12 Dec. 2014. Iannone, Jason. "21 Ways Advertisers Are Manipulating You And You Don't Even Know It."Distractify. Distractify |, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014. Phillips, Michael J. Ethics and Manipulation in Advertising: Answering a Flawed Indictment. Westport (Conn.: Quorum, 1997. Print. Read More