Commercial Advertising : A Primary Attribute Of American Culture Essay

Beginning with the Election of 1952 to modern elections, political advertisements have played a significant role in the number of voters and the outcome of elections. These broadcasts have allowed America to actually see the contenders and permitted politicians to quickly reach voters. Now political commercials are used for identical reasons. However over time, the advertisements become more condemning. In the past a politician’s broadcast was used in a positive way by focusing on making themselves look better to the public. Today, politicians focus on destroying their opponents. They spend millions of dollars to create advertisements that negatively impact the voter`s view of that statesperson.

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

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).

Advertisements are everywhere. From billboards, to magazines, to newspapers, flyers and TV commercials, chances are that you won’t go a day without observing some sort of ad. In most cases, companies use these ads as persuasive tools, deploying rhetorical appeals—logos, pathos, and ethos—to move their audiences to think or act in a certain way. The two magazine ads featured here, both endorsing Pedigree products, serve as excellent examples of how these modes of persuasion are strategically used.

In companies wanting to be successful they have to attract customers somehow into buying their products. The most effective way to do so is to advertise/promote the product through TV, magazines, or billboards. These advertisements later lead to people having cultural myths, “a story or idea that explains the culture or customs of people” (Davis). A cultural myth is a traditional story that holds special significance for the people of a given culture. “Myths are the motivating stories or ideas common cultural practices”, said J. Francis Davis in the article Power of Images: Creating the Myths of Our Time.

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

In this day and age, political advertisements are stretched to the limits of toleration. Many of them focus more on the shortcomings of their opponents rather than the ideas and plans they have for the country. Often, the ads are nothing more than superficial smears aiming to tarnish the image of the target nominee. If the ads where kept cleaner and were more focused on important

Commercials airing on the television or radio, the billboards on the side of the freeways trying to grab your attention to buy their product, even while scrolling through various social media platforms, we go through our day to day lives with advertisements all around us. In Jack Solomon’s essay, Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising, he states that the main purpose of all these advertisements is to show us our unhappiness within the American dream. He goes on to describe the differences in these advertisements which are known as the populist ads and the elite ads. Solomon's description of the contradiction between populism and elitism very much affects the way advertising and media is portrayed in American society.

The use of commercials talking about candidates and clothing with a candidate's name promote that person for a political role. The cost of money for the commercials and the clothing made by a political group help with the economy as well as getting the person into office. When the economy does good people are happy and will continue to keep them in office. For example, AT&T uses the slogan “ The right choice.” If a consumer is happy with the way things are going with there cell phone company and happy with the price they will continue to stay with that company. Similarly to a cell phone company if people have the money to go out and buy or do things they will continue to stay with the same leaders that made this possible.

The content and the commercial spots in which they are placed are always at the discretion and control of the candidate with his/her campaign– these spots can broaden an audience of people that other forms of media simply can’t. The ads, placed specifically during bipartisan programming, can target and influence people of all backgrounds to vote for their candidate as research shows voters learn more from political spots than any news coverage or televised debate.

In “Propaganda Techniques in Today 's Advertising” by Ann McClintock, the author discusses how Americans are being brainwashed by advertisements and the different techniques they use to catch our attention. Ads are simply everywhere we look, it is impossible to get through the day without seeing one. All advertising companies put tons of research into how consumers spend money or even vote. Once these companies finish their research, they create advertisements that appeal to the masses. The basic propaganda techniques that McClintock writes about are Name Calling, Glittering Generalities, Transfer, Testimonial, Plain Folks, Card Stacking, and Bandwagon. Each one of these propaganda techniques is used in specific ways by advertisers to sell their product or service to consumers. I have selected a political ad which uses the Glittering Generalities technique, a coffee ad that uses Transfer technique, a soda ad that uses the Testimonial technique, and a soup ad that uses the Name Calling technique.

It is very common among the United States’ political sphere to rely heavily on T.V. commercials during election season; this is after all the most effective way to spread a message to millions of voters in order to gain their support. The presidential election of 2008 was not the exception; candidates and interest groups spent 2.6 billion dollars on advertising that year from which 2 billion were used exclusively for broadcast television (Seelye 2008.) Although the effectiveness of these advertisements is relatively small compared to the money spent on them (Liasson 2012), it is important for American voters to think critically about the information and arguments presented by these ads. An analysis of the rhetoric in four of the political

This paper has two broad aims: to trace the theoretical development of political marketing and then demonstrate how these concepts can be used in the analysis of election campaigns. Electioneering is not the sole manifestation of marketing in politics but it is the most obvious, a point underlined by recent work addressing the prominent role now played by political marketing in a parliamentary democracy like Britain (Franklin 1994; Kavanagh 1995; Scammell 1995). Whilst much of this material understandably concentrates on the once neglected work of campaign practitioners, the more