The Effects of False Advertising

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.

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

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

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 are an important vehicle designed to promote or help sell a product, service or idea (Young, 2014, p.35). As a dimension of IMC, advertising is “…most often associated with offenses that attract attention from critics and regulators alike” (Young, 2014, p.34). This can be

Media impacts our lives everyday. The average 14-to-28 year-old will be exposed to about 3,000 ads every day. Ben Franklin once said that nothing is certain is this life except death and taxes. I believe it is now safe to assume we can add advertisements to that list now. We are literally bombarded with them. After seeing all the advertisements I am led to believe that they are the most carefully constructed of all human communication, being it the most expensive too. In 2004, according to www.answers.com, advertisement was in excess of $450 billion in the United States alone. It is not our fault though that these advertisements display messages that we cannot perceive. When we see an ad, our conscious mind will filter out the things it cannot deal with and make an acceptable idea or image that is made conscious. This is

Throughout the last decades there has been vast improvements in advertising and its persuasive effects to our psychology. Not only has it become part of our global culture, it is so deeply ingrained in our society that we sometimes don't even notice if someone trying persuade us by their use of simplistic persuasive techniques. It is only when we reflect on the speech, video, or advertisement that we can pinpoint their propaganda objectives.

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.

The typical person looks at 3,000 ads every day or more, as professors teaching our students to understand marketing principles, and how to communicate more effectively. With an audience, we have to face the reality of the advertising world today and understand that the examples we face today are fairly commonplace. Buying the product of interest will bring us happiness, popularity, status, prestige or any number of other outcomes that are certainly better than where we find ourselves. “The FTC Improvement Act of 1975 expanded the Federal Trade Commission regulatory powers over unfair or deceptive acts or practices this ensured that companies would make truthful claims about their products ,these claims are often measurable and objective” (Thorne,

While there are some positive things about advertising, the negatives are far more destructive. Due to advertising, girls and women are being objectified, unhealthy eating habits are being promoted, and materialism

According to Bassham et al. (2002), a logical fallacy is “an argument that contains a mistake in reasoning” (p. 140). There are two types of logical fallacies, fallacies of relevance, and fallacies of insufficient evidence. Fallacies of relevance happen when the premises are not logically relevant to the conclusion. Fallacies of insufficient evidence occur when the premises do not provide sufficient evidence to support the conclusion. Though there are several logical fallacies, four logical fallacies commonly found in advertising are amphiboly, appeal to authority, appeal to emotion, and non sequitur.

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 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