MEDIA STUDIES:
The Influence of Advertising
Dealing with advertising starts with understanding how it works, what it does, and how it intends to influence you.
While you may be taking advertising for granted, it does seek to influence what you spend your money on. Many people don 't believe that they 're susceptible to being influenced, let alone manipulated, by advertising. However, it wouldn 't be so omnipresent if it didn 't work.
Advertisers hide the manipulative parts of advertising, because people will not accept it if they notice being manipulated. It needs to appear innocent in order to have an influence.
So how does advertising influence people?
Advertising as information
An obvious reason for advertising is simply
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If you know a brand simply because you 've seen the logo everywhere, you are letting marketers decide for you.
Life style identification
Lots of advertising connects a product or brand with a particular life style. People who identify with that lifestyle, will feel attracted to these products. When you feel like "such and such" a person, and an ad or commercial values that, you 'll feel willing to buy the product or brand, even if it isn 't presented that prominently in the ad. You 'll believe you like the product because it is "like you."
Sex sells
As the saying goes "sex sells." Advertisers will put sexy women next to cars, let handsome actors tell how great a product is, or have women in bikini show how great the beach is.
For men, sexy and attractive women in ads will grab your attention. Instantly, and without a need to explain anything. And that is what advertisers want, instantly having our attention, as their message by itself is to most of us not really that interesting.
BODY IMAGE:
It has become obvious now that the media advertises and promotes a very unhealthy trend of extreme dieting and other bad eating habits to women. Most of media sources put on their covers images of skinny emancipated females. Doing this they influence the subconscious mind of the masses. And women continue to spend their money trying to achieve this unattainable look they constantly see in media advertising.
To try and solve this problem let 's answer
Advertising appeals to emotions, rather than reason. Most ads try to attract your interest or stimulate your desire by either scaring you into doing something or appeal to your emotions by tying a product to your “happiness or well-being”. Successful ads also use compelling visuals to entice the audience into action. Many also use celebrities because research shows we are more likely to associate truthfulness with a known celebrity figure.
Ads are a way to deliver a message to people and make them want to buy a product or to influence them to do something, or act in a different manner. Ads do this by being very persuasive and making you believe what it says and trying to appeal to you. But some people don't realize how they can easily be manipulated and misled by ads by false claims and making you doubt yourself and making you want something better. An excerpt from the book Advertising:Information or Manipulation clearly depicts how ads get to people and how they target certain ages and genders. This source reveals how ads try to establish loyalties with people by targeting them at young ages, and by implementing this strategy in ads it has proven successful as adult women today
The definition of advertising is outdated. It was previously, to endorse a product and praise goodness to induce the public to buy. They are now brainwashing consumers to buy their products using images to sell the product. The advertiser’s aim is to make the product look as good as it can through an attractive image. There are statistics, which I obtained from a Dolly Magazine, 16th May 2000, which proves that one out of four people in Australia buy a product because of the image shown in the advertisment. The images are eye catching and mention something important about the product. Ultimately it is true that, “Advertisers sell images, not products.”
magazines, on the internet, and practically everywhere there are ads. They make the customer feel as though they are not good enough, as if they have something missing. Weight loss products make claims, that are usually false, promising that the buyer will look and feel better about themselves. By showing pictures of other's results after using the product, a customer could be convinced into investing in the product themselves. Beauty products are advertised in a similar way. Usually targeted towards women, most of the time they contain pictures of beautiful women, using or wearing whatever lipstick, nail polish, or shampoo that the particular company is advertising. When a
Advertisements are everywhere, combining images and words together to create a message to sell a product. The initial impression is that the advertisers are just trying to sell their products, but there often seems to be an underlying message. It is often heard that “sex sells.” So, many advertisers will use beautiful women and men in their advertisements to try to market a product. The hope is that “sex will sell,” and people will go out and buy what the ads are selling. There are many advertisements and commercials that use this approach. Prime examples of this are the advertisements for Orbit Gum and A Diamond is Forever. Also, the commercials for Levi jeans use sex to promote the sale of their brand. As a way to
you buy them this toy. Every one of our emotions is played on so that
For instance, when you look at commercials or ads for tools or so-called man food, all you see is half naked women promoting the product. One specific example is energy drink commercials. Many energy drink commercials have girls dressed in bathing suits (or other skimpy clothes) running around, dancing, or doing some kind of activity to somewhat show how these energy drinks work. And although these women are performing some kind of energy using activity, it is there sex drive that attracts men to these products and what makes them so popular. Like Taflinger says, men consider her beautiful because, to a man, beautiful and sexually attractive are virtually synonymous. Therefore, it is easy for advertisers to get a man?s attention by using women?s bodies and associate getting the woman with buying the product. The advertiser is playing on his instinctive rather than intellectual view of the world, thus the ad spends no time discussing her qualifications for sexual desire and her mere existence is enough (Taflinger). Moreover, most men are aware that women are less concerned with mere anatomy, since they are looking for more, thus advertising can show the woman and sell the product on the basis of ?women want this product in a man. Get the product, get the woman? (Taflinger).
The average American is exposed to an estimated number of about two-hundred fifty to five hundred advertisements in a single day. As unrealistic as the statistic seems, it is because most people are not often aware of the companies attempt to expose their products through an advertisement to the consumers unless it is one that is personally appealing to themselves. An advertisement is used to grab the attention of the audience by means of television, radio, internet, billboards, magazines, and newspapers. Through the use of media, the advertisers usually create the advertisement to persuade the audience to take an action after viewing the advertisement or they use the advertisement to manipulate the audience into believing their product is
Advertising is not only used to sell products, it also affects the ideas of who we are. Each and every day we are induced to believe that we must spend money to attain an ideal
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.
Advertisers will go to almost any length to convince consumers that their product is the best, something that is necessary. Targeted advertisement is used to appeal to a certain group of consumers. One of the most common and recognizable examples is the use of female sexuality to sell products aimed at men. Even products that aren’t specifically male oriented seem to exploit the female body as a way to catch people’s attention. In 2009 Arby’s released a magazine ad (Figure 1) displaying a pair of hamburgers, obviously representing breasts, with female hands crossed over them. The text beneath the photo reads “We’re about to reveal something you’ll really drool over.”. Admittedly, the image does immediately catch a reader’s attention. That is, of course, the purpose of advertising. To seize interest, maybe even shock. Clearly this example is not extreme, it’s a
“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 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 is a powerful medium and people do get influenced by it. Advertising definitely has a profound influence on the kinds of products consumers buy. It can be uniquely tied to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in that advertising uses powerful anchors for their products that usually associate them with basic human needs: acceptance, love, security, self-esteem etc. Marketers utilize this method to activate a consumer’s motivation or determination for a particular product. For instance, if one has been needing a new car recently and sees an advertisement on a sales promotion for a new car, then one’s desire or ambition to fulfill that end goal will be achieved. Advertising creates brand awareness and that is where its true power lies. It influences the way consumers want to be by making consumers feel that they need a certain type of product to be beautiful or to be cool. Product’s often define one’s self-concept, which strongly influences consumer behavior. People choose many of their products because they think that such products are similar to their own personalities. Symbolic interactionism arguably tells us that each individual has many selves and each person requires a variety of products as props to play each role. People use cherished items, products, and more to define one’s self, which in turn, constitutes one’s extended self. Advertising influences one of products that her or she needs to become ones ideal self, something that seems so unattainable in the world
Advertising is a major part of our culture/society; it surrounds us wherever we go. Yet