The Effects Of Advertising On Our Society

Magazines are popular in the United States; they can be found in stores, offices, and houses. They are popular for advertising. Television, news, radio, billboards and online websites are just a few forms of media that companies use to advertise their products or services. Companies use advertisements to influence the consumer to either buy or use their products and services. Advertisements are used to manipulate consumers in many ways.

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.

Unfortunately, advertising is sending our country into a quick downward spiral, doing an immense amount of harm and little good. Companies pay millions of dollars each year, in hopes to successfully pull the wool over our eyes and get their product sold. The dishonesty is leaving the citizens of this country with nothing to gain. The biggest problem with advertising is that the majority of it is alarmingly misleading. Advertisements convey an unrealistic view of a particular product. Companies go to extraordinary lengths to persuade consumers to indulge in unnecessary luxuries. Once again, the consumer falls victim to their tricks and

to represent that, that I felt like a doll for so long.” Said Cara Delevingne, supermodel.

Marketing to children is not a new phenomenon; however, there have been many ethical debates on its rightness; is advertising to children a gentle persuasion of the innocent or a sinister threat to our society? There’s too much as stake if we remain silent and simply assume that marketing companies have our children’s best interests at heart; the truth is they don’t. This paper will explore to implications of marketing to children and the overall effects it has on our society. I will argue that advertising to children is a social problem. In the first part of my paper I will discuss why advertising to children is ethically wrong, I will then discuss what has changed; this will be followed by a discussion as to why it is a social problem and finally, I will conclude my paper by discussing what should be done to change it. Please note this paper is written in the first person as I have children and I have a vested interest in this topic.

In today's world, advertisements have become a huge part of our everyday lives. Advertisements are considered persuasive, powerful, and manipulative tools that many businesses use to persuade consumers into buying or using their products or services. So, it's no surprise that no matter where we look, we see them everywhere; newspaper, magazines, billboards, buses, online, television, and etc. It seems as though the whole world is drowned in them. Similar to how writers explain their purpose through rhetoric, advertisers use the same effective techniques to persuade their consumers.

As part of a capitalistic country, advertisements play an important role in business progression and consumer decisions in the United States, due to its aid to consumers to help make a purchase that would, in turn, help businesses and themselves go about their daily lives. With advertisements cleverly materializing on billboards, television, and a myriad of locations on the seemingly infinite space of the Internet, there is bound to be at least one that affects one 's decision-making process either the most or rather significantly. An advertisement that protrudes out into the light of memorable pieces of art, in terms of composition simplicity and personal impact, is an ad for Microsoft 's Windows 7 Operating System, intelligently titled "Life Without Walls". Using Jib Fowles’ Fifteen Basic Appeals, this ad for their personal computer operating system appeals towards the need for guidance, achievement, and the need to escape, while secondarily appealing towards the need for autonomy and to satisfy curiosity in a way that is pristine and superb.

The beginning of the twentieth century signaled a major transformation in the United States that brought about a new economy based on consumption and mass production. The onset of new technologies that were developed towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century had affected the entire U.S. populace, which ultimately led to a society marked by a whole new lifestyle centered around technology, music, and entertainment. These new technologies not only affected every facet of American life, but they had also helped to revolutionize the American advertising industry spurred by the creation of new mediums between the consumer society and the marketers. Through the creation of the radio, and later the television, the advertising agencies were able to play a very influential role in the mediation of commodities to consumers. However, the success of the

Nine hundred sixty three million dollars was spent this year by McDonalds on advertising. This is up 8 percent from last year. The sad truth is that the number of fast-food ads produced each year is increasing, as well as the percentage of obese people in the United States. Advertisements of high in sugar and calorie foods are almost directly related to obesity within America. There needs to be a stop to this epidemic. Companies spend vast amounts of money to put out an enormous amount of ads. Many of which are viewed by children ages 2-11. On average children in the US see about 253 McDonald’s ads a year. One might see common fast-food ads on TV, billboards, or just about anywhere else in the media. Advertising is a growing market and it is expanding all the time. There is no way to can cut them out of your life.

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.

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.

Marketers used many different themes and techniques to make sure that children remember and ask for their products. During two hours of Saturday morning programming for children over forty ads are shown for different commodity type products. Various techniques are used to advertise these products and each ad have an underlying message.

Advertisements are like sharks. They are interesting, intriguing, and preying on the vulnerable. There are many kinds of sharks, just like advertisements. Commercials are a significant part of today’s culture. They influence what society likes or wants. Today, people might want the new LED fidget spinner, and tomorrow, everyone wants the new pop socket. In this debate, it is crucial to consider whether the effects of advertising are positive or negative. While many people may think advertising has a negative effect on society, the effects of advertising are generally positive through the way they create awareness and educate people on major issues.

In our media rich society, we see advertisements every day. Their appearance happens at numerous places ranging from cereal boxes to television screens, as well as public buses. Most advertisement often conveys an unrealistic view of the product. While it is a mass marketing technique to make the consumer buy the product, but most of us believe whatever advertised is true without giving a second thought to it. In our contemporary society, it has become very hard to escape the influence of such advertisements. These advertisements affect us in shopping malls, while watching televisions as well as in food places.

According to Lipsyte (1977:59), “sport is the single most influential currency of mass communication in the world ... sport cuts right through the differences of age, education, language, gender, and social and economic status, all those differences that tend to divide us“. Yet when it comes to advertising these differences are not put aside, especially in terms of gender and race. According to Schroeder & Borgerson (1998), advertising is quite significant when influencing, building and illustrating consumers vision of the good life, which includes sexual attraction. Domzal & Kernan (1993), added that, advertising images represent an essential part of the experienced visual world. Reality and advertising are not separated and affecting one another, but instead advertising and the mass media contribute to the visual scene that shapes reality. Advertising shapes identity, especially gender identity. In other words, the way women are portrayed in advertisements should represent their images and identities in the real world. A study by Knoll, Eisland, & Steinhagan (2011: 878-879) established that compared to men, women were seven times more likely to be stereotyped. This is due to the fact that men’s roles haven’t changed as much in society and at work place, thus they are not as regularly stereotyped. Moreover they added that in adverts, usually, women are younger than men and likely to be under 35