Controversial Advertising Essay examples

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

Do you ever watch the Super Bowl for its commercials? Have you ever bought a more expensive product because you had seen its advertisement? If the answer is yes, then you might have been a victim of today’s marketers. Jean Kilbourne, the author of “Killing us Softly” stated in one of her lectures, “The influence of advertising is quick, cumulative and for the most part, subconscious, ads sell more products.” “Advertising has become much more widespread, powerful, and sophisticated.” According to Jean Kilbourne, “babies at six months can recognize corporate logos, and that is the age at which marketers are now starting to target our children.” Jean Kilbourne is a woman who grew up in the 1950s and worked in the media field in the 1960s. This paper will explain the methods used by marketers in today’s advertising. An advertisement contains one or more elements of aesthetics, humor, and sexual nature.

Through various examples, Harold demonstrates culture jamming as an active role against growing capitalism. Harold notes that society has adopted a consumer-based culture and is no longer moral or value motivated. The author uses the words ‘culture jamming’ to describe the objective of marketing rhetoric of multinational corporations through sabotage, media hoaxing and billboard liberation. Culture jamming is used to disrupt mainstream media institution used by individuals who value anti consumerist social movements. The article begins by discussing Adbusters Blackspot anti ad campaign, which emphasizes the counteracting of popular advertisements. They create popular parody’s, making fun of marketing and advertisement campaigns, throughout magazines in hopes to expose the truth about the large advertisement corporations. Harald believes that parody’s are a form of critique of the advertisement and do not influence change to solve the issue of the ad. Harald views parody’s less effective than pranking, a subset of culture jamming, a change in the ad, producing new shapes and different effects, that attempts social change. Pranking in comparison to culture jamming has the ability to relate stronger messages more clearly against the system of capitalism. It is capable of relaying informational, funny, or insulting messages to a larger group of individuals through analogies. The author also points out Michael Foucault and Gilles Deleuze idea of the disciplinary control of culture. Disciplinary control of culture is seen that as consumers we are constructed as an assembly line style production. Advertisement companies view our beliefs and custom products to fit our needs to maximize their efficiency and profit from the product. Advertisement companies benefit from the anti

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

Susan Bordo’s Hunger as Ideology argues that the seemingly progressive improvement of destabilizing images in advertisements in order to break the stereotypical mold is not as “progressive” as one might think; These images do not challenge the old patterns that dominate the advertisement world but break the barriers of the ideologies that have been classical “sold” to our society. It is agreeable that these “destabilizing” images allow their viewers to challenge the normality usually depicted, however there are categories in which these images do not show progress, but make way for an opposite effect, leaving a negative taste in the mouth of the consumer because of the intent of use of images in the uncommon advertisements.

In Chapter Seven of Practices of Looking, we start to explore in the ideas of advertising, consumer cultures and desire. Everyday, we are faced with advertisements through newspapers, magazines, TV, movies, billboards, public transportation such as buses and taxis, clothing, the internet, etc. Logos, such as signs, or anything that resemble a brand, are everywhere, they are on clothing, household items, electronics, cars, etc. Consumers are always showing off their brands and advertisements and we are used to seeing those brands and advertisements in an everyday setting. In modern media, advertisers are pressured to always change the ways they show off and get the attention to consumers, old and new. Advertisers also used present figures who were glamorous. Advertisements set up a certain relationship between the product and its meaning to sell the products and the hidden meaning we link to each of the products. Advertisements use the language of conversion. Advertisers try to create a customer relationship to the brand to try to form them as familiar, necessary, and also likeable.

Of course, the Super Bowl can be considered the most watched television recording in American history. As a result of withholding the attention of such a vast audience, many commercials are showcased during the Super Bowl games, creating a commodity in which those commercials are watched more than the Super Bowl games themselves. A mass amount of viewers can unquestionably be beneficial to advertisers seeking to sell their products and services. However, benefits are not the only things these ads invoke, detriment can occur as well, as seen throughout history among a variety of television commercials. The Coca Cola commercial, displayed during Super Bowl XLVII, is one of the most recent commercials that has been scrutinized. The Coca Cola

Advertisements play such a power role in the media area. Advertisements don’t just sell products, they are now showing a way of life, they sell values, they sell body image- the ideal body. We are said to be exposed to an esitamted ‘range from around 250 per day on the conservative side, to 3000 and above’ [1] of adverts. They are now showings us what to strive for within our looks and what we wear. Our hair colour and style and it seems apparent that all

Today’s quick-moving world of technology has media texts such as advertisements to make sure that people understand with just a glance. Having adverts on magazines, social media and billboards allow them to use tools such as semiology, genre and narrative because it makes their messages clear instantly. These signs allow us to carry meaning through advertisements, connotations and the signification process. These tools let brands, mainly celebrities, and the option to produce and create a myth of the product such as “Be daring. Be an inspiration” to sell it to the world. We are in a time where advertisers use ‘simplicity’ in their adverts; there are no more paragraphs. It is mainly down to the person and the few words shown in that advert.

What could possibly be more American than apple pie, baseball or the anonymous World War II kiss? Coca- Cola, of course! Coke’s strong pathos resonates as a symbol of America’s golden years. The Coke bottle montage adorned in pictures of unforgettable American events, artists and past times embodies what it truly means to be American. To be American means to take pride in your country and represent as a unit, not as an individual. All the components that have compose this montage grasp the concept of American patriotism.

The ‘Dove Evolution’ advertisement is a perfect example of postmodernism advertising and complements the above discussion of hyper reality. The advertisement presents the full process in creating a billboard worthy advertisement. Firstly, the segment provides a behind-the-scenes look at how the model is, essentially ‘created’, and shows the audience how the ‘original’ image becomes the final product, unlike modernist advertisements which just presents an already final and ‘beautiful’ product. Emphasis on the use of photo-shop illustrates how technology has become a tool in modern day advertising and highlights Baudrillard’s (1994) view that the people of today live in an ‘unreal’ and fake world. Filming and disseminating this process “allows us to live without the illusions that modernity dangled before us” (Hart pg 9) The background classical music that has been slightly distorted illustrates Hart’s (2004) belief that “Postmodernism takes what it likes from high culture (classical music) and puts it to work in popular culture (advertising)” (Pg 8, Hart, 2004), further illustrating the idea that postmodernism involves removing “things out of their contexts, fragmenting them…and, well, playing with them” (pg 8, Hart, 2004). The final cut shows the billboard up, without showing the process of how that image came to be, reiterating Mills (1956) argument that the public would be unable to tell that it is a hyper-real image. This advertisement exemplifies Harvey’s (1990)

“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

Advertising and promotion, ethical pitfall: Issues over truth and honesty. Issues with violence, sex and profanity. Taste and controversy and negative advertising