The Role of Advertising

What is the Influence of Advertising on our children today? The influence of advertising on our lives, for both our children and us, for many years the influence of advertising has changed. Some people may remember when the advertisements of toy companies were directed at the adults instead of the kids, hoping that the adults might buy the products. Today’s advertisements have changed. Advertisements are more pervasive, sophisticated, and are now aimed directly at getting kids addicted to “products” at a very young age (Marconi, JM.). This goes to show that advertisers have realized that it is better to go right for the person who the product is for and not for the person that will be buying it for someone else. So how has advertising

Everywhere a person looks, they will see some type of advertisement. Fliers, posters, billboards, commercials, and magazines, humans are constantly bombarded with ads of all types each and every day. Every advertisement aims to inform the consumers about the existence of a specific product or service. Advertisers use two ways to inform consumers of their products or services, and they are a cognitive approach or an emotional approach. What approach they take is completely up to the company, but what all advertisements seek to do is carry out and communicate a certain message to society. This message is associated with the marketing objective of the sponsor, and most of the time that objective is to affect the consumers purchasing decision.

The term advertising, the peaking of one’s interest about a product or service offered, has been used since the 1500s. For over five hundred years, companies and inventors have been influencing consumers to buy or invest in their products through advertisements. These ads can come in all types, shapes, and sizes. They can range from radio, print, television, web, or even advertisements by word of mouth. The idea of advertising can be complicated to understand, but why ads need to be used is very simple. Advertisements tell people what is out there to buy.

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,

Advertisement has taken a significant role in people’s daily lives. With the development of technological devices; it is impossible to escape from the advertisements. People now are surrounded by advertisements everywhere, on the TV screen, newspapers, magazines, and on the internet. Advertisements help people know information about the products and keep track of the new products. However, with all the advertising out there, advertising techniques have changed in several ways to grab the consumers’ attention and to keep the consumer’s loyalty to the product. According to James B. Twitchell’s article, “What We Are to Advertisers,” Twitchell said, “The object of advertising is not just to brand parity objects but also to brand consumers as they move through these various communities.” (Twitchell, 182) This describes why many of the advertisements now tend to be more manipulative than to be informative. Many people opposed to the idea that the advertisements are manipulating and they often argued that advertisements increase the consumers’ knowledge about the products. However, there are some evidences that advertisements are manipulating the consumers and influence their decisions by associating the product with feeling, using entertainers, and making the advertisement visually attractive.

Advertisements work in such a way that we grow to envy those we are not; they exploit our perceived flaws by displaying a person who is the living and breathing version of who we wish to be. John Berger in his book, Ways of Seeing, explains that publicity works by convincing his reader that advertisements use envy to entice the public to buy products: “Publicity persuades us...by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable” (131). Though Berger published his book in 1972, his arguments about envy and publicity still hold truth, perhaps now more than ever. Furthermore, the more present advertisements are in our everyday life, the more envious our society becomes. With the power of envy, those who fall under its spell become choiceless, and therefore powerless. Berger also argues in his book that there is a correlation between the number of advertisements we see and the less freedom Americans possess. However, Berger believes that capitalism hides this powerlessness with the illusion of choice: “Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society” (149). This idea Berger has relates not only to the advertisement of products, but also to present-day politics. Withheld information creates power using envy which is used in both advertisements and the US government. As more envy is created with modern day technology, and we become more immersed into social media, the further we stray from democracy.

The main goal of advertising and marketing is delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. Having a strong an e-commerce brand is vital for an e-commerce business to be successful. Marketing and advertising is almost as important as a brand. A major part to branding is how the message is delivered. Advertisers have new and ingenious ways to get their advertising messages to the consumer. Using the world wide web, social medias sites, display ads, video advertisements along with mobile technology will increase visits and earnings to any e-commerce site.

What is an advertisement? Who uses advertisement? Advertisement’s dictionary definition is a notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event or publicizing a job vacancy. In other words, the advertisement is used to promote a product and sell new things in the market. Basically, everyone uses advertisement nowadays; even you and I use it in our day-to-day life. When we tell our friends to buy something or recommend a product to them that's advertisement. We don't even know it that we are doing it that's how deep it is being used in our lives from day to day bases. You can see it everywhere even before starting a movie in a cinema hall, or when you are watching a video on YouTube. One of the biggest advertisers out there is McDonald.

A customer should know whenever they see an ad in the daily paper, or on television that it could possibly be false advertising. Companies use these advertisements to catch the eye of the viewer and make them interested in their product, such as, claiming they will receive a prize for interacting with their product so much.

Businesses has been using advertising campaign to help it company succeed for years. Many people may think the main aim of advertising, many believe is to sell. What is an advertising campaign? An advertising campaign is an organized course of action to promote a product or service, and provides a direct line of communication to its existing and prospective customers. (Iacobucci, 2013) An advertising campaign is typically broadcast through several media channels. Most of the ad campaign may focus on a common theme and one or few brands or products, or be directed a segment of the population. There are several reasons a company may use ad campaign. Advertising help creates awareness for it content. Why? Advertising is a great way to help get that content found and consumed once you’ve gone to the effort to produce it. Creating awareness helps lead to finding and building trust with its customers. Advertising is great because it also allows one to choose or targets its ideal segments only. This is great because a very strong message to the right or selected audience the connection can be awesome. When a company uses advertisements, the company sees this as a positive because it’s only medium one can control. Advertising will add credibility to one message and amplifies everything else the that companies are doing. Therefore, when a company uses advertising campaign to create awareness for its content it automatically creates more awareness for everything else it’s doing.

Advertisements are encountered nearly everywhere; on billboards, walls, television, social media, and even sometimes in the form of a banner soaring through the sky. It is the most effective way to attract clientele using a number of strategic methods in order to convince the reader to either buy their product or follow their campaign. Corporations and politicians have had an impact on not only the market but in society as well when using these advertising techniques. A great example of effective advertisement is the American Express: “Small Business Saturday” campaign. Initially, the Small Business Saturday campaign, was intended to convince the consumers that when they shop at small local businesses with an American Express card they would receive cash back. However, the video was so well strategically marketed that “Small Business Saturday” was eventually converted into an official holiday in 2011 by the U.S Senate and throughout the U.S and since then, and is celebrated every fourth Saturday of November. Which is quite ironic, considering that it is the day right after “Black Friday”, where mostly big corporations open for longer hours just so they can sell ridiculously discounted prices on goods.

As the awareness of ethics and social responsibility have been growing within U.S. corporations the ethical implications of marketing and advertising have become a more prevailing subject, especially that of marketing products directly to children. According to “Marketing and Ethics” ethical marketing seeks to promote honesty, fairness, and responsibility in all advertising (Freeman, Fritz & Mead, 2010). The American Marketing Association has set a statement of ethics in place that is supposed to govern and guide marketer’s actions through their stated ethical values. The six ethical values; honesty, responsibility, fairness, respect, transparency, and citizenship are the representation of the collective idea of desirable and morally correct conduct. (“Statement of Ethics”) These six values of the statement are supposed to set the standard for these companies to measure their marketing actions. These standards of ethics are important for the marketers to keep in mind as advertisement campaigns directed towards children are continuing to grow. According to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, companies spend about 17 billion dollars annually marketing to children. (“Marketing to Children” 2008.) This includes anything from television, product placements, or packaging designs.

The role of advertisements are simply created to conform the assumptions about the people who are either viewing or going to purchase the product which is seen in the ad. Advertisers know that specific ads are more or less appealing to a certain social class, hoping that their product will successfully land in front of the eyes of their ideal consumer, who will then be motivated to purchase what is seen in the ad.

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.

Advertising allows us to communicate a salient message to a large group of consumers faster than any other form of communication. It allows us to truly connect with the consumer; it gives us an opportunity to develop an ongoing relationship between the consumer and a brand. At its best, advertising will create a sense of urgency for the consumer, awareness often honest and accurate that there are products, places, styles or sensibilities that cry out for action or attention.