A Critique of Toxic Advertisements

Logos, ethos, and pathos are essential components used in advertising. By learning to recognize logos, ethos, and pathos in advertising, we are able to understand the message and what is being portrayed. (Albert et al, 2014), suggested that Aristotle postulated that a speaker’s ability to effectively convince an audience is constructed on how well the speaker appeals to that audience in three different areas: logos, ethos, and pathos. These appeals together form what Aristotle calls a rhetorical triangle.

Every day, companies present the people with advertisements everywhere they go. Advertisements have become very prevalent in today’s society nowadays focusing in on a negative connotation. Advertisement has become an effective way for producers to display their new products. In present day, they come in forms of billboards, flyers, e-mails, and even text messages. It is widely known that companies create advertisements to persuade people to buy specific products or goods; however, it is not widely known that advertisements can make a negative impact on today’s society. The companies manipulate people’s mind and emotions, swaying people by new promotions and therefore generating a strong desire to fit into the society, that causes them to make inessential expenditures. Advertisements pose a critical impact on the American culture.

For the longest time now, advertising has played a huge role in how we identify ourselves in the United States with the American culture, and how others identify themselves with all the cultures of the rest of the world as well. It guides us in making everyday decisions, such as what items we definitely need to invest our money on, how to dress in-vogue, and what mindset we should have to prosper the most. Although advertising does help make life easier for most, at the same time it has negative affects on the people of society as well. Advertisement discreetly manipulates the beliefs, morals, and values of our culture, and it does so in a way that most of the time we don’t even realize it’s happened. In order to reach our main goal of

The average United States Citizen views about 5000 advertisements a day (Johnson). Advertising is everywhere. Billboards on the way to work, ads on the internet, and paper products such as magazines or newspapers display a sale or a promotion of a good or service. Usually, the ad will give a brand or company name, and uses the product’s merits to draw the consumer closer. This has grown exponentially as advertisements in media in 1970 were estimated to be 500 a day, a ten percent increase in the last 48 years. (Johnson). This is due to the rise of technology, as the computer has become a household gadget within the new millenium. These advertisements are meant to give a synopsis of the product or service’s purpose, quality, and efficiency. If a consumer views 5000 advertisements in a single day and assuming the commercials do not repeat, 5000 goods or services are introduced. With more options to choose from in such little time, the consumer has a harder time differentiating the quality and perhaps necessity of the product. The marketers rely on the quick, impulsive decision making of consumers. With the misleading nature of many infomercials or radio broadcasts, the people of American society are bombarded with constant propaganda, thus making seemingly harmless promotions more potent to filling industries’ pockets and lessening the common population’s

The text illustrates how today, advertisers only value their financial opportunities rather than the significance of the environment. Major companies place billboards, street signs, and bench ads to reach out to a fraction of the population that is on the road. Not only are the ads a disturbance to the drivers, but the businesses do not pay the least attention to the environment and only consider the economic improvements and money they will receive. Yes, ads are essential to improve the consumer rate for a company, but it is not needed to destroy a part of nature or to violate a child’s view from the car window to get a company’s point across. Technology may be there to create a cure for cancer or to build better lives for the poor, but look at what technology is doing to the minds of children, teens, and adults. Can people see their shifts in behaviors or the differences in how they talk and communicate with one another? Can people see their children suffering or see teenagers cyberbullied? Technology

Media impacts our lives everyday. The average 14-to-28 year-old will be exposed to about 3,000 ads every day. Ben Franklin once said that nothing is certain is this life except death and taxes. I believe it is now safe to assume we can add advertisements to that list now. We are literally bombarded with them. After seeing all the advertisements I am led to believe that they are the most carefully constructed of all human communication, being it the most expensive too. In 2004, according to www.answers.com, advertisement was in excess of $450 billion in the United States alone. It is not our fault though that these advertisements display messages that we cannot perceive. When we see an ad, our conscious mind will filter out the things it cannot deal with and make an acceptable idea or image that is made conscious. This is

Advertisements are everywhere. They are a major part of modern day society. Whether it be a television commercial, an internet banner, or a billboard, advertisements influence people of all ages, but they affect a certain age group much more than others. Children ranging from toddlers to teenagers are exposed to thousands upon thousands of advertisements each year. Some of these advertisements are damaging to children, while others are a positive influence. Advertisements can either be used as a tool or a weapon. Food advertisements and manipulation strategies are both positive and negative, and how companies use them decides whether or not marketing to children is ethical.

“There are over 250 billion advertisements released to the public every year with the average person seeing over 3000 ads every single day” (Kilbourne). This is an astronomical amount of information for anyone to process in a week let alone in one day. This is a prime example of Capitalism at it’s finest. Controlling the consumer in every aspect of their lives. Jean Kilbourne also talks about how “Only 8 percent of an advertisement is actually processed by the conscious mind, with the other 92 percent being soaked up by the subconscious” (Kilbourne). Thinking about those numbers really brings into perspective how much we are truly influenced by media

Kilbourne demonstrates three major main criticisms of advertising. First, advertising objectifies people and objects for the purpose of sales. This critique promotes products as more important than people and exploits human deeds and desires. Kilbourne offers ample evidence to support her first criticism of advertising. For example, Kilbourne examines advertisement such as the Thule car-rack - which humorously places more value on sports equipment been a child's life - is evidence of the trend that advertising is “objectif[ing] people…trivializ[ing and exploiting] our most heartfelt moments and relationships. Every emotion [,person, animal, and natural phenomenon] is used to sell us something” (Kilbourne, 2006, 369). Second - according to Kilbourne - advertising promotes and perpetuates the unnatural passion for products rather than personal relationship. “Advertising corrupts relationships and then offers us products, both as solace and as substitutes for the intimate human connection we all long for and need” (Kilbourne, 2006, 370). Within this concept, advertising also commits ‘cultural rape’ by manipulating sacred symbols for their utilization as emotional leverage in advertising. Third, advertisements damage the personality and structure of culture. For example the Giwch’in tribe’s traditional culture was almost erased by the introduction of advertising through television. “As multinational chains replace local character, we end up in a world in which everyone is Gapped and Starbucked…[Thus] rampant commercialism undermines our physical and psychological health, our environments and our civic life, and creates a toxic society” (Kilbourne, 2006, 371), which robs individuals of cultural and personal diversity. Based on the evidence presented by Kilbourne, I strongly agree with all three of these

According to “Cigarettes by Eric H. Shaw and Stewart Alan, “advertising continued to increase the size of the market, despite an expanding awareness of health risks and increasing advertising restrictions,” (Source B). An ad isn’t looking to solve another person’s problems with something that will definitely benefit their wellbeing. An ad is made to make a person believe he needs the product they are selling so that the business can continue to profit off of someone’s vulnerability and grow off the people to naïve to even realize they are being played. According to “Exercise Your Moral Judgement Through the Way You Buy” by Renato K. Sesana, “they create unfulfilled desires and then they push us to buy the products that we do not need,” (Source F). As a popular catch phrase goes it’s “like taking candy from a baby.” According to Advertising Information or Manipulation? By Nancy Day,” Advertising tells you what you need. Before advertising told us to, who worried about dandruff...It can make us unsatisfied with who we are, greedy for what we don’t have, and oblivious to the miseries of millions who haven’t a fraction the comforts we take for granted,” (Source D). Before ads, there weren’t as many stereotypes or as many dissatisfactions that people have. On the other hand, an ad can inform someone of

Because advertisements are purposely placed to be seen, it has become a part of our lives. Even when watching television there are constantly commercials trying to convince us to buy items that are often of a lower price. I’ve noticed that in these commercials they use tactics in order to try to engage the viewer. Not only do they show a low price but they often include multiple copies of the same item. For example, if there was a commercial about pillows, they would often include more than one of them for the same price. This makes people think they are getting an extremely good deal because more quantity for the same price. However, these items tend to be of low quality. As a result they may need to be constantly replaced and thrown away. This leads to a cycle of a company to sell, the consumer to buy, and to replace. In the process, these unwanted items are being thrown in landfills and polluting the Earth. As it mentions in, Bookmarks, Possessed by Our Possessions, “Passively buying into production practices that contribute to poisonous waste every time we go shopping depletes the earth in the process” (Cole 4). This statement is extremely accurate, especially in America. Although we have only 5% of the world’s population, we consume 30 percent of the world’s resources. And because of this, we also produce 30

Advertising has had a major impact on society. Some may be considered positive and some negative. Take a look around, advertisements are placed everywhere, television commercials, billboards, newspapers, and even on the sides of buses. Advertising is the basic form of marketing and trading throughout the world. Today’s society knows it as marketers trying to influence or persuade consumers into buying something. It also serves as a medium for services and businesses. There are many advertising strategies, but television commercials will always remain the number one strategy. Think about it, how much television is watched a day, probably a lot. What better way to advertise a product or service? Advertising has a positive effect on our economy. It does not only influence and persuade consumers, but it also benefits them in many ways. It also benefits manufacturers and their company, and the world as a whole.

Unfortunately there are consequences that arise when a consumer has been greenwashed. These consequences are that consumers ultimately spend more money on products that they believe stand true, and when purchasing these products the consumer is supporting companies that are harming the environment. Downing et al. states that, “learning how to read advertising critically thus provides individuals with important tools for interpreting contemporary American culture and avoiding manipulation. Ads are complex texts, the images, words, framing devices, and

As accessibility to and the advancement of the new media increases, our control over what we choose to see to decreases exponentially. Although advertisements do not seem to manifest harmful effects, many advertisers use Machiavellian tactics to sway the opinions of people. Such tactics include: clickbait, which makes use of targeting the curiosity of viewers to simply click on a specific link or video, and data mining, the tracking of recent searches to show advertisements specific to what the robots claim to be one’s interests. These techniques used are implemented to evoke the specific interests of the consumer, making pure curiosity in control of what the reader is paying attention to.

     However, with every positive side comes a negative, and advertising is no different. 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 don’t really need, often projecting negative emotions such as fear, anxiety of guilt upon the consumer (Engel). 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.