The Pros and Cons of Commercial Advertising.
Advertising is a message designed to promote and persuade people to buy a product, a service, or an idea. These advertising messages are on television, in newspapers and magazines, radio, Internet, and outdoor signs (World Book Online, 1). In American society the average person is targeted with at least 3,000 ad messages per day (Potter, 135). To aim these hundreds of thousands of messages at each indalvial, advertisers spend over 220 billions dollars a year. Breaking the billions of dollars down by the number of people in the American population it would equal out to be 700 dollars of manipulation money spent per person (138). With all these images, jingles, ideas, and desires added into our memory bank, one must consider the advantages and disadvantages commercial advertising has on the American public.
The impact of advertising on our society is a fiercely debated topic. Most public criticisms and debates on the negatives and positives in commercial advertising are for five major reasons. The first one is that "advertising is excessive" (139). The critics believe that there are too many messages the average person is exposed to every day, in the end we pay more money for these advertised products and services because of these ads. Others believe that advertising is the price you pay to have other products and services for free, such as television. .
The second criticism is that "advertising manipulated us into buying things we don't need" (139). This is because if forces us to buy things, often by projecting negative emotions such as fear, anxiety or guilt upon the consumer (Engel, 258). It is also, claimed that advertising plays with our basic Maslow's human need for survival. Some say if we stick to our basic need such as, a set of clothes, a shelter, and some daily food then advertisers are asking us to buy what we don't need.