Essay about Advertising Messages to the Global Society

What does an ad say about a society? When viewing a product advertisement, many people never stop to think why the ad and product appeals to them. However, when a more critical look is taken, it’s easy to see precisely how ads are carefully tailored to appeal to trending values of a targeted demographic, and how that makes it easy to examine the society of those whom the ad is targeted at. In the analytic writing Advertisements R Us, Melissa Rubin provides an excellent example of this, as she crafts a logical and clear analysis of a 1950’s Coca-Cola magazine ad which thoroughly explains how advertisements can reveal quite a great deal about the society in which they were created.

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

Advertising remains within a perpetual state of change but the 1960s saw a significant change in the approach advertisers took to target consumers. Automation allowed for mass production of goods which meant that advertisers had to convince a consumer that a mass-produced item could be made personal and contribute to their individuality. Consumers were trying to be seen as individuals, this caused demassification as consumers began to be grouped into more and more refined categories. Advertising became less about what the product did and more about how the product contributed to individuality and advertisers used the counterculture and anti-consumerism as a way to target consumers. “The message in the new ads was quite simply, ‘buy this good to escape consumerism.’” (Reading, 7). This may be considered deceptive towards consumers as the advertising takes advantage of insecurities and consumers desperate want for social acceptance and individuality. There were multiple shifts in advertising formats the product-information format, product-image format, personalised format and the lifestyle format each targeting consumers in a different way, the final shifts were more effective in targeting those with an anti- ad mind-set

Throughout history, advertising has played a significant role in consumerism, politics, and much more. By the 1920’s it had developed into a major aspect of daily life for Americans, determining everything from their hygiene habits to their meals. Despite this having been almost one-hundred years ago, there are many similarities, but also many differences in the advertising industry today.

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

STUDY GUIDE 1 Questions for “New Branded World” by Naomi Klein “On Advertising: Sut Jhally vs. James Twitchell” “Advertising as Religion” by Sut Jhally Film: No Logo Film: The Diamond Empire Naomi Klein: New Branded World

Advertising and Societies: Global Issues. New York, NY: Peter Land, Inc., 2003. Rpt. In Advertising. Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web 30 July 2015

Adverts have been around for hundreds of years, and have since developed hugely as technology has enabled us to advance even more. Adverts have developed from illustration with text in the early 1700’s to large high definition photograph/illustration on billboard or TV advertisements with high definition. (Adage, website, 1999) Advertising in the 21st century doesn’t just stop at billboards and TV advertisements. We have now gone onto using every space available to us to advertise, we are surrounded by adverts, or even advertisements surrounds us. Its endless, everywhere we go, we see adverts posted on a wall or on websites that we visit.

Advertising has been defined as the most powerful, persuasive, and manipulative tool that firms have to control consumers all over the world. It is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Its impacts created on the society throughout the years has been amazing, especially in this technology age. Influencing people’s habits, creating false needs, distorting the values and priorities of our society with sexism and feminism, advertising has become a poison snake ready to hunt his prey. However, on the other hand, advertising has had a positive effect as a help of the economy and society.

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.

Advertising has always been an important part of our society. The history of advertising can be traced to pre-modern history when it served an important purpose by allowing sellers to effectively compete with other merchants for the attention of clients in Ancient Egypt. From 1704 when the first newspaper advertisement was announced, it gradually grows into a major force in American society based primarily on newspapers and magazines (Ad Age Advertising Century, 1999). It not only helps to raise the target demographics’ awareness of issues, but also educate consumers with the benefits of the product. However, advertising cannot target a particular person before the emerging of World Wide Web.

“Advertising is far from impotent or harmless; it is not a mere mirror image. Its power is real, and on the brink of a great increase. Not the power to brainwash overnight, but the power to create subtle and

This confusion, change, and complexity are even greater within the international world-wide marketing environment. The debate over the amount or extent of standardisation or adaptation is of long duration. Vrontis and Vignali (1999) comment that the debate on this came under discussion as early as 1961, with Elinder (1961) considering the idea with regard to world wide advertising. The early sixties first coined the term ‘global village’ that was further discussed by Roostal (1963) and Fatt (1964). Buzzell (1968) widened the debate by stating that it would encompass not just advertising, but the whole of the marketing mix. Buzzel (1968) argues that in the past, dissimilarities among nations have led a multinational company to view and design its marketing planning in each country strictly as a local problem. However, the situation has changed, and the experiences of a growing number of multinational companies suggest that there are 7

Advertising is one of the channels of social communication. The system of social communication provides not only the preservation and rebroadcast achievements of culture and cultural norms and everyday practices, but it is also a crucial part of the process of inculturation personality which is essential to the processes of social development as a whole. An important event in the evolution of modern mass culture was the so-called “visual turn” resulting from the multimedia revolution of XX-XXI centuries.This revolution led to the dominance of visual cultural forms, including outdoor advertising as a mass phenomenon culture.