Taking a Look at Manipulative Advertising

Advertisements today are everywhere. The average consumer is bombarded with some sort of ad at every blink of an eye. In the beginning, advertisements were only seen on the television or heard on the radio, but now advertising is leaking into the consumer’s phone, in virtually every application. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, the list goes on. Advertisements are made to grab the consumer’s attention swaying them to purchase whatever it might be the producer is try to sell.

The history of advertisement can be traced back to ancient civilizations. The focus of advertisement has always been to persuade a person or group of people to buy or announce a product. However more recently, it seems that the focus is shifting in a completely different direction. The last time you looked at an ad, you may have seen a product be harmlessly advertised. Perhaps with a silly tagline, attractive colors, or evan a playful joke.

The original definition of the word “advertising” does not look that bad. It is simply explained as “calling the attention of the public to a product or business.” However, the advertising companies usually abuse the real meaning of advertising and try to sell their product no matter what it takes to do so. It is very hard not to notice advertisement in today’s world. The commercials, the adds, the posters are everywhere; from TV, newspapers magazines and billboards to even a bus that is taking us to work everyday. Advertising companies know exactly how to get into our heads and how to convince us to buy their product instead of thousands of the different ones. No one can argue that advertising is influential, but there are a lot of

For many years we have seen advertisements on TV, billboards, and even magazines that try to persuade us to buy a certain product. Many of these advertisements try different methods of connecting with the audience. Most of these advertisement are successful into making us fall into traps, that make us somehow end up buying the product, or service they are implying on us. In the the article "Propaganda Techniques in Today's Advertising" by Ann McClintock, Ann provides evidence that we are targets of propaganda, and they we are victims of it everyday, she also claims that it shapes many of our opinions and decisions. Nike, Audi, and Honda have all used different methods of propaganda to try and influence the right audience.

Advertisements are public marketing announcements in the form of television commercials, radio broadcasts, or printed posters with the objective of selling a product or service. (“Advertising,” n.d., para. 2) Advertisements can change the way you feel about anything including yourself. As a child when you were watching TV and a commercial for the “coolest” new toy came on, you immediately wanted to go to the store and buy that new toy essentially because the commercial had fun music, flashy colours and it showed other kids playing with it and having fun and enjoying it.

o Advertising is a method of marketing and communication used to promote or sell a good, service or campaign. For example; TV adverts, radio commercials, billboards, pamphlets, etc.

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.

2) Rob Walker refers to the advertising business as the “commercial persuasion industry” and offers the notion of “murketing” as this industry’s current method of operation.

Escaping advertisements is completely unheard of in this day and age--they are found on every corner whether it be on our phone screens or even on public transportation. These advertisements that we are accustomed to seeing use these manipulative tactics to grab our attention and buy into whatever they are selling. Advertisements are filled with multiple mediums that all share one thing in common; the relationship between power and persuasion.

Deceptive advertising has been around since the beginning of time and still prevalent today. Sometimes it is done unknowingly by an advertiser, however more often than not; it is done with the intent to mislead the consumer making deceptive advertising a relevant marketing ethics issue. Deceptive advertising is a growing trend among business in our society. This trend includes directly trying to deceive consumers into thinking that they are getting something great but in reality they are getting nothing. All age groups are targeted by deceptive advertising it is just a matter of how consumer savvy you are. Almost all companies are guilty of this

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.

Cutthroat business, ruthless dog-eat-dog relationships, and high stakes are timeless key characteristics of the advertisement business. Overtime, the advertisement business has evolved and adapted to suit society’s desires. Advertisements from the 1950s seem alien to us today. The advertiser’s main goal is to sell you an item, idea, or service. To do this, advertisers must represent their target audience’s wants and desires. So as society changes, advertisements must too. The most prevalent changes in the modern era since the 1950s include the methods of reaching the consumer and changes in the content of the advertisements. Gender roles in advertisement have not seen as much of a dramatic change. However, advertisement has evolved, but not necessarily for the better, as it still reflects almost every characteristic of our society; from our materialism to our distorted morals.

In order to generate sales, marketers often promote aggressively and uniquely. Unfortunately, not all marketing advertisements are done ethically. Companies around the globe spend billions of dollars to promote new products or services and advertising is one of the key tools to communicate with consumers. However, some methods that marketers use to produce advertisements and to generate sales is deceptive and unethical. Ethical issues concern in marketing has always been noted in marketing practice. According to Baker and Hart (2008), ethics itself has a profound, varied and rich past. It emphasizes on questions of right and wrong or good and bad. In this essay, it addresses the issues about how marketers should evade deceptive advertising as well as unethical pricing.

But first, we should give a useful definition of advertising. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (2015), advertising are ‘‘the techniques and practices used to bring products, services, opinions, or causes to public notice for the purpose of persuading the public to respond in a certain way toward what is advertised’’. Meanwhile, Belch and Belch (2009, p.18) describe advertising as ‘‘any paid form of impersonal communication about an organization, product, service or idea by an identified sponsor’’.

There are plenty of advertisements we see on a daily basis on magazines, new papers, televisions, in our mailboxes, emails, and billboards. Are advertisements commonly considered informational or manipulative? Most people think that advertisements are commonly informational because they tend to state facts in the advertisement that can make you believe it can be informational but in fact they are manipulative. Advertisements use manipulative tactics to get consumers to purchase their products (dachis). They aim to keep you from thinking and makes your buying choice on an emotional response (dachis). People accept the fact advertisements are manipulative because they feel as it is informative because it attracts the attention of potential buyers. Advertising is significant because it creates a sense of attentiveness to the consumers about products that are obtainable. Manipulation and non- informative is the primary tool in advertising. I strongly believe that this is their way to persuade consumers to purchase or believe in their products, so advertising is not informational but strongly manipulative to get what they want out of the consumers which are money.