Does Advertising Create Artificial Wants?

Individuals decide whether or not he or she want to believe the advertisements they see and hear. Just as O’Neill evinced “You must listen. You must read. And finally you must think – all by yourself” (352). If individuals learned how advertisements work, he or she can avoid being persuaded by the salesman. The individual will no longer feel forced to buy products he or she did not want. Society should serve a positive influence for change in advertising.

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.

Every minute of every day, millions of people are exposed to advertisements. They plague televisions, streets, radio waves, and all means of communication. These advertisements employ many methods of persuasion and their influence is irresistible. Just like prisoners in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, we are told every day to invest our time and interest into the subject of these advertisements, and to accept the forms of reality they serve us. Whether it be a commercial for a must-have new car, to a spot featuring desirable fast food, or to magazines with photoshopped models; we are seduced to accept these false

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

Advertisements have become more common and can be found in almost all locations in the society; however they vary depending on the content and the medium they use to convey the information. It can be noted that television has become one of the most influential and powerful medium since it gives both visual and hearing attributes. Television is preferred by many organizations among them being Power ads since it gives a leading hand in competition since it basically influences the consumers not because of the unique product qualities but the mode at which the advertisement is made. Advertisement being one of the marketing strategies has to be designed in a way

People are easily influenced and made to feel unhappy by these advertisers, so they feel the need to purchase more products without becoming much happier after the purchase, causing you to continue to buy in search of happiness (McKevitt 144). Roberts explains that “the process of moving ahead materially without any real gain in satisfaction is often called ‘the treadmill of consumption’,” he continues stating that the treadmill is a blocking us from achieving this happiness because we automatically take good things for granted (124). The family Turow describes is perfect evidence to support that the treadmill is a blockade; the family continues to purchase things in search for becoming happy, but they never seem to become happier, despite the advertisements saying they will be (229). Without the growth and influence of advertisements, most of today’s society would only be purchasing items that they can afford and need, not what they are told they want. Maslow’s hierarchy, again, explains this clearly, nowhere on the pyramid is there a “want” there is only “needs” (McKevitt 147). Because of advertisers, the consumption treadmill continues and consumers will never reach

With the new technological advancements of the 1900s, the concept of advertising prospered into a new industry based on the desires of the people. Historically, magazines, newspaper, radio and television have all greatly improved advertising, making it one of the largest forces that works to help or hinder society. “Before 1910, advertisers mostly sought to inform customers about products; after 1910, the main goal was to create a desire to purchase products” (Blackford 3). Thus, business strategy was created that convinced people that they needed a product. This opened up a new world for people to be manipulated into spending their money on what they thought would improve their lives. Advertising improved the

People see up to 5,000 commercials a day (Johnson); additionally, a number of individuals feel that these advertisements are simply informative. Actually, they are choked full of fallacies which deviously influence peoples spending. Granted, advertisements are an important element in the business world and a thriving economy because of its information, it is manipulative due to the fact that it distorts a human’s view on a psychological level by embellishing, disregarding the entire truth, and appealing to an individual’s deepest desires.

In the 1982, Robert Arrington wrote a paper titled “Advertising and Behavior Control,” in which he separated the complex issue of what constitutes autonomy into four parts: (a) autonomous desire, (b) rational desire and choice, (c) free choice, and (d) control or manipulation. Arrington notes the differences in points of view between those who are against advertising on the belief that persuasive advertisements are guilty of “controlling their lives and manufacturing their very souls,” and the advertisers who believe it is an effective

    In today's society, we as consumers are exposed to media on a daily basis. Beginning the day with a glance at the daily newspaper and finishing the evening with a television program, the average person cannot escape the clutches of the media in its seemingly endless forms. Along with presenting objective information that includes local news, weather, and sports, a main function of modern media is advertising.

Since advertising must create new demand, it must also continually produce unsatisfied costumers. Those customers are more likely to look for products to fulfill their happiness, even though they do not reach that point. Mander writes that “the goal of all advertising is discontent,…an internal scarcity of contentment.” Advertising plays on our fears, insecurities, and anxieties, always reminding us that our lives could be better only if we buy this or that. The purpose is to make us slaves of commercials, and as slaves, do as they please. This is the reason for its existences,

Consumerism is a description of society’s lifestyle in which many people embrace to achieve their goals by acquiring goods that they clearly do not need (Stearns, 7). The idea that the market is shaped by the choice of the consumers’ needs and wants can be defined as a consumer sovereignty (Goodwin, Nelson, Ackerman, Weisskopf, 2). This belief is based on the assumption that the consumer knows what it wants. Contrary to this logic, marketers convince us that the consumer does not know what they want. The consumer has to be told what they want or be persuaded by advertising items in a matter that demonstrates the reason a product makes their life easier or will improve their life instantly. As one of the most successful entrepreneurs,

Dave Ramsey, America’s most trusted financial adviser and a radio show host, once said, “We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.” (Ramsey). Ramsey’s quote reflects the state of consumerism that our society is going through. Most of us can easily relate to this quote, let’s be honest most of us have been there done that and then later question our genuine need for whatever we have bought. Regardless, if we feel guilty or not we ought to ask ourselves why and what made this purchase seems so important and necessary at the time. Although this might not come as a surprise to most of us, the answer would be the advertisement industry. In 2016, The United States has spent more than 198 billion U.S dollars on advertising, making America the leader in advertisement in the world (Statista). These ads are designed to force consumers to keep buying things that are unnecessary by sending subliminal messages and applying psychology to trick the consumer into a spending spree. In his short story, “Subliminal Man”, J.G. Ballard uses science fiction approach to illustrate to his readers the preposterous techniques that the advertising industry has been using to boost consumerism. Ballard believes that the consumer’s brain has been tricked into buying against their well, by using technology and applying subliminal technics. Ballard short story questions the effect of consumerism on our moral values, lifestyle, and behavior. Ballard claims that

Advertising is a persuasive communication attempt to change or reinforce one’s prior attitude that is predictable of future behavior. We are not born with the attitudes for which we hold toward various things in our environment. Instead, we learn our feelings of favorability or unfavorability through information about the object through advertising or direct experience with the object, or some combination of the two. Furthermore, the main aim of advertising is to ‘persuade’ to consumer in order to generate new markets for production.

Kover et al. (1995) defines effectiveness in advertising as ‘‘the ability of an announcement to produce interest in purchase or use the good or service it is promoting’’ (Kover, Goldberg and James, 1995). Many researchers have tried to establish a link between the content and effectiveness of advertisements, and this will help us to identify some general factors that affect advertising, in order to recognize which one can maximize the desired effectiveness.