Advertising Influence On 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

In our society today a business is not a business without an advertisement. These advertisements advertise what American’s want and desire in their lives. According to Jack Solomon in his essay, “Master’s of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,” Jack Solomon claims: “Because ours is a highly diverse, pluralistic society, various advertisements may say different things depending on their intended audiences, but in every case they say something about America, about the status of our hopes, fears, desires, and beliefs”(Solomon). Advertisers continue to promote the American dream of what a women’s body should look like. They advertise their products in hopes for consumers to buy them, so they can look like the models pictures in the ads. Behind these ads, advertisers tend to picture flawless unrealistic woman with the help of Photoshop. In our society today to look like a model is an American dream and can be the reasons why we fantasizes and buy these products being advertised. “America’s consumer economy runs on desire, and advertising stokes the engines by transforming common objects;signs of all things that Americans covet most”(Solomon).

The most dominant mass marketing technique known as advertising has become inevitable. Advertisements are everywhere in some form or fashion. Whether it is billboards, posters, fliers, or any other print media, advertisements are there fulfilling their purpose; in other words, they are breaking down the “tuning out” barrier. In the article, “Jesus is a Brand of Jeans” written by speaker, social theorist, and widely published writer, Jean Kilbourne, she expresses that we are all influenced by advertisements. She indicates that majority of the power of advertising originates from the mentality of believing advertisements have no effect on oneself. I agree with Kilbourne on the fact that advertising affects every individual.

Advertisements are everywhere and they can easily be seen if one just takes the time to open their eyes. However, one of the more prominent things that advertising does is influence their audience’s decisions, and these decisions can vary based on where the audience consumes it or even the way in which their community views it as well. The ways in which one experiences advertising can contribute to how they choose to consume and this can affect their consumer habits as well. Not only that, but advertising and popular culture can influence the views on style and gender roles, especially in males. Also, the way that social class can change when immigrating from one country to another can lead the way to new ideas of what one should strive for in society as well. That being said, in relation to the interview that was conducted, advertisements and media are definitely a major influence in how one sees the world, and depending on where you grow up and are raised, your views on society and advertising can change dramatically.

The obesity epidemic in the U.S. and other developed countries is introducing greater risk for many causes of preventable death (e.g. heart disease, type 2 diabetes) and harming the quality of life for those affected. Many factors contribute to the rising rates of obesity, though some are implicating food-marketing techniques more directly (Miller, 2008). This study is part of a line of research that intends to understand how food advertising and marketing can be altered to make healthy eating decisions easier. One of the main ideas uniting this line of research is that when we are confronted with food, which we need to survive, it triggers primary biological motivations to approach and consume. Several factors about food, however, may

I have chosen sources from the media, literature and interviews for supporting the essays. The topic “The power of advertising: its effects on Children”

As part of a capitalistic country, advertisements play an important role in business progression and consumer decisions in the United States, due to its aid to consumers to help make a purchase that would, in turn, help businesses and themselves go about their daily lives. With advertisements cleverly materializing on billboards, television, and a myriad of locations on the seemingly infinite space of the Internet, there is bound to be at least one that affects one 's decision-making process either the most or rather significantly. An advertisement that protrudes out into the light of memorable pieces of art, in terms of composition simplicity and personal impact, is an ad for Microsoft 's Windows 7 Operating System, intelligently titled "Life Without Walls". Using Jib Fowles’ Fifteen Basic Appeals, this ad for their personal computer operating system appeals towards the need for guidance, achievement, and the need to escape, while secondarily appealing towards the need for autonomy and to satisfy curiosity in a way that is pristine and superb.

The beginning of the twentieth century signaled a major transformation in the United States that brought about a new economy based on consumption and mass production. The onset of new technologies that were developed towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century had affected the entire U.S. populace, which ultimately led to a society marked by a whole new lifestyle centered around technology, music, and entertainment. These new technologies not only affected every facet of American life, but they had also helped to revolutionize the American advertising industry spurred by the creation of new mediums between the consumer society and the marketers. Through the creation of the radio, and later the television, the advertising agencies were able to play a very influential role in the mediation of commodities to consumers. However, the success of the

"The American Dream" is all about being free and independent. Having your own home, making your own decisions,even being a bussiness owner/ entrepeneur. Being educated. Are we really free and making our own choices?

Humans have been a focus for marketers for over 100 years and at the rise of the twentieth century, mass media became widely recognized. In a period of mass availability, people today have entry to more media outlets than ever before. According to media scholar Jean Kilbourne,“the average American is exposed to over 3,000 advertisements a day and watches three years’ worth of television ads over the course of a lifetime” (back cover). It is all around us, from the shows we watch on television, the music we listen to on the radio, and to the books and magazines we read each day. Media is the number one source for advertising. Advertising is “a manipulative enterprise that uses subtle techniques to persuade consumers into accepting whatever sales pitch [that is] presented to them (Blades, Oates, and Blumberg 3). The vast majority of people do not think that advertising has any influence on them. To their surprise, “this is what advertisers want the general population to believe; however, if that were true, why would companies spend over $200 billion a year on advertising” (Kilbourne 33)? The media has full control to decide what the public sees and how it is portrayed.

So far this year, the United States advertising industry has spent about $200 billion on advertising, and $75 billion of that being on commercial advertising (CITATION). Advertising has always been a primary attribute of American culture, and especially the past couple years, commercial advertising has become the central strategy in the presidential race. In the 2016 presidential election, Republicans and Democrats together spent about $4.4 billion on their commercial advertising campaigns (CITATION), trying to persuade citizens on who to vote for and why. But do you ever stop and think about all the aspects of the message? Commercial advertising aspects are all significant, and are considered to be “works of popular art”, as Berger would say (CITATION). Lotman explains, just like art, “Everything in a text such as a commercial is important; and the more you know, the more you can see in a text” (Berger, ). This is because commercial advertising is a lot more powerful and persuasive than we imagine, especially when it comes to politics. In order to completely fulfill my interpretation of political commercial advertising, I will be using the Sociological and Political approach to analyze two political commercial advertisements.

Nowadays, the increasing number of companies decide to boost the investment of advertisements in order to propagandize the new products more effectively and efficiently. Munusamy and Wong argue that advertising has become one of the important elements in our modern life (Munusamy and Wong). According to the most recent forecast of US advertising spending, eMarketer expects US advertisers to spend $171.01 billion on paid media this year, up 3.6% over 2012 spending levels ("US Total Media Ad Spend Inches Up, Pushed by Digital - EMarketer."). Besides, the increasing concern from the businessmen who spend a lot of money on advertising, there are also a rising number of customers who have highly prone to choose a product while being affected by advertisements. For example, the advertising that children view daily works -- 84 percent of parents take their kids to a fast food restaurant at least once per week (Davidson, Jeremi. "How Are Teenagers Affected by Advertisements for Fast Food?"). In addition, some advertising strategies will cause some social problems, such as advertising some products which will undermine health. Given the fact above, the increasing investment of advertisements is the debatable exigency. The research questions which leaded me to investigate are listed as follows: Is the huge investment of the advertisement worthy? And what kind of advertising strategies should be applied to gain better advertising effect?

The sole purpose of advertisements is to catch individual’s attention to a product, a service, or a good through the means of a public medium of communication in order to promote the sale of that service or good. The American advertising industry has long been an extremely powerful aid for the American consumer culture (Taylor). For an extended amount of time in American advertising agencies were only accustomed to doing their business and advertising in print. Yet, with the popularization of music and it’s abilities as well as technological advancements, advertising agencies soon had to get over this habit and expand their way of doing business. The advertising industry had been putting out advertisements since the player piano and

Every day millions of Americans are exposed to upwards of 5,000 advertisements per day. Whether a consumer’s eyes are glued to a television while watching an advertisement or briefly glancing at a billboard, the ads he/she sees have an effect all the same. It is important to shed light on the fact that the contemporary society that America is a part of is continually influenced by the advertisements within it. Children and young adults often determine a mold of who they aspire to be simply through viewing a commercial on a television. The “Macho-man” and/or “Skinny Model” serve as the universal standard in contemporary advertising, and oftentimes even for products that are in no way related to the health or looks of an individual. Along with this, products and/or the appearance of people in advertisements are often tampered with to create an unrealistic image or effect. People have become acclimated with the number of advertisements that occur in their daily lives, leading them to become oblivious to the dangers that are, no pun intended, right in front of their faces. The concept of advertising itself is not an issue, in fact advertising has its benefits such as the ability to spread information quickly or help local business owners stay competitive in the corporately driven market. However, the benefits that the ability to advertise gives to society are oftentimes overshadowed by the negative impacts that come with it. The three major issues with advertising today are

Consumer Culture is at the root of all social, political and economic development of western cultures for the past three hundred years. Advertisements become a key role in creating ideological messages and meanings. In a consumer culture and capitalist economy, advertisement becomes a tool used by corporations to influence the minds of the buyer. When a company produces an ad or commercial, their main objective is to get the viewers’ attention in order to sell the product. Many different methods are used to lure an audience in; tactics may include print or