Advertising has been used to convince people to purchase products or hire services of the advertiser. Advertising is used as a medium of marketing since a long time and especially after companies started doing business aggressively. Advertising has some negative effects and people keep complaining about these effects every when and then. This paper intends to discuss advertising, its negative impacts on the society and several other related aspects of the subject matter.
Advertising has been emerged as an effective instrument for companies to generate money and this is the reason why companies are shelling huge amounts of money in advertising campaigns. Advertising itself is not bad or harmful but when advertisers indulge in negative advertising of any product and services or intend to cheat people, then it becomes a problem. Advertising can cheat people because people easily believe on claims made by companies about their products. For example brand like AXE in commercial shows that it attract women which in reality not. Axe after applying grow hotness of men. Zeilinger in her article mentions that “The world is facing one of the biggest crises in the history of history”.
Companies put out of sight several things about their products while advertising their products or services which is negative advertising and people can be cheated through tricky advertisements. Companies focus only on good things of their products and advertise their products. People buy these products on believing upon claims made in the advertisements but after buying these products only, they come to know the real picture of the product and if the product is not as per their expectations, they feel cheated. Olay anti-aging advertisement was banned by authorities when they noticed that it is not at all effective and highly misleading. Advertising authorities claim that no evidence has found that proof effectiveness of product (Daily Mail).
Advertisements promote materialism and focus on consumption. Their main objective is to create demands for their products whether these products are really useful for the buyer or not. Advertisements of fast food never show any overweight child in their advertisement but only show that people are just enjoying their time with fast foods. However they should disclose that fast foods are a major reason of growing obesity in people. Several other problems are also taking place due to fast foods. McDonald is known for its effective advertisement because it attracts people to consume their products (Bhasin and Laya). In reality such products are unhealthy and should not be consume frequently.
Companies advertise their products in such a way that it spreads wrong messages. When an advertisement shows that dozens of girls are following a boy or just because the boy is using a particular perfume or wearing jeans of particular brand, it confuses other boys. When a girl is portrayed as miss universe just because she was using a particular cream or eats a beauty product of particular brand, it confuses other girls. Such advertisements have a tendency to impact youngsters in a negative way as they also want to be like the girl or the boy that was shown in the advertisement. Garnier Beauty Benefit cream claims that it protects skin completely. It protects skin from sun and other harmful effects and keeps it glowing.
Companies, through their advertisings, promote cigarettes and alcohol without caring about product’s impacts on the society (Cummings et al.). Youngsters are easily confused and companies target them with their advertising tricks. The negative aspect of such advertisements is that they are made and shown in such a manner that confuses people and negative aspects of the product is deliberately concealed. It has been observed that advertisements affect psychology of people and persuade them to purchase their products without paying attention to negative effects of products.
Companies are making advertisement that not only increase awareness about their products but attract consumers to buy those products because of quick and effective results. Advertisements have celebrities increase brand recall and develop a relationship with the buyers. It helps in associating people with the products. While using products consumer feel that they are on similar position as their celebrities or they feel that they will also become like them after utilizing those products (Donnelly). In reality Celebrities do not use those products they are just meant to attract consumers.
After having observed the analysis of the above mentioned subject, it can be concluded that advertisement has some negative impacts o people and some steps are required to be taken in order to deal with these problems.
Works Cited
Donnelly, Shannon. "The Daily Beast." 24 March 2009. thedailybeast. 25 Nov 2013 <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/03/24/12-best-foreign-celebrity-ads.html>.
K. Bhasin and P. Laya. "Business Insider." 25 Jul. 2011. businessinsider. 25 Nov 2013 <http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-ads-2011-7?IR=T>.
K. M. Cummings, A. Brown and R. O'Connor. "The Cigarette Controversy." Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev (June 2007): 1070 .
Mail, Daily. "Daily Mail." 4 March 2009 . dailymail. 25 Nov 2013 <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1158983/Olay-wrinkle-cream-TV-advert-banned-watchdog-finds-misleading.html>.
"Oprah." May 2012. oprah. 25 Nov 2013 <http://www.oprah.com/style/Best-BB-Creams-BB-Creams-with-More-Coverage>.
Zeilinger, Julie. "Huff Post." 1 Aug 2013. huffingtonpost. 25 Nov 2013 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/axe-commercial-suggests-that-women-ruin-everything_n_3689409.html>.
