The Evils of Advertising
Introduction
Advertising is a form of communication where audiences or viewers are persuaded to purchase products and services either willingly or unwillingly. The information contained in commercial advertising includes a description of the item, its benefits, target market and the pricing at various levels of distribution. Other advertisements which are not necessarily commercial include awareness programs about public issues which are beneficial to all hence the information is passed on in the form of advertisements. However, not all cases of advertisements are beneficial to the audience as some of them contain misleading information such as making consumers engage in impulse buying, as well as, misleading children into believing that advertised goods are the best. At this point advertising is seen as an evil which is only aimed at presenting false and appealing information to consumers so that the sales of the company can be boosted.
Discussion
One of the reasons why advertising is considered as evil is due to the amount of annoyance that is attributed to featuring of the commercial breaks that are associated with the presentations. Most adverts are featured to make appearances during prime moments such as when a program is going on especially programs which are significantly popular. This corresponds to the target group such that a commercial advertisement involving children items will appear prominently during programs that are mostly watched by children. Consequently, the annoyance is felt when the advertisement lasts for a prolonged periods at critical moments of the programs. When this occurs the viewer fails to continue watching the advert due to the interruption thus it fails to create the intended objective as the target audience ignores it on the grounds of their interruptive nature (Kilbourne, 2000).
The other evil associated with advertising is their ability to make people hooked into their presentations. Children are especially affected greatly by the predicament as they tend to believe that all information presented in advertisements and more so the commercial ones is true hence should be followed. Hence most of the commercial and non-commercial advertisements that are aired when children programs are running often tend to be successful at the expense of the child. This has been linked to increased cases of obesity and overweight among school-going children due to the impact of junk food adverts at prime children viewing times. This increases the chances of elevating the sales as the graphical images are quite appealing and children will have a new way of spending their pocket money. Thus despite the many attempts of parents to have their children refraining from eating junk food especially at school, advertisers will be reaping huge profits as children are willing to go against their parents wishes to satisfy their needs. Hence from the parents view advertisements are evil as they contort the young minds into believing that all that is advertised is good and it should be brought (Kilbourne, 2000).
Consequently, the other evil associated with advertising is the urge to spend hence resulting into impulse buying for consumers. Some advertisements are cultured in such a way that a product or concept is presented in such an ideal form such that consumers are wooed into buying it. Sometimes the pressure can be so much intense leading to abandonment of personal interests at the expense of trying out the new product. This has cost many people problems in their budgetary allocations for household goods as some of them have to be removed from the list to create room for the “emergence”. Similarly, the buyer ends up in a rather compromising financial situation due to the impulse purchase thus intensifying the already existing weakness of impulse buying (Kilbourne, 2000).
Another evil that is attributed to advertising is presentation of false information which may have detrimental effects on the entire health and well-being of the individual. Consequently, as firms and producers are aimed at increasing sales of products, most of tem do not pay much attention to the ethical consideration of presenting true facts about the item being advertised. As a way of appealing to the consumers, advertisers often incorporate more attractive concepts on the advert, in addition to, using flowery language which may turn up to be misleading when it is too late. Such episodes occur when a product is new in the market and it has to create an edge above the others and the advertiser has to ensure that it makes a bigger impact on the market than the competitors (Kilbourne, 2000).
Conclusion
Advertising though informative has its loop side when the ethics that are part of marketing are not regarded. This makes advertising a source of controversy thus it is labeled an evil as has been proved in the body of the text. Various target groups are affected by the advertisements due to the negative impact of the images and information on the overall effect of the same on the group. Though not all cases are negative, the benefits that are derived from adverts are mostly inclined on the side of the advertiser and not consumer.
Reference
Kilbourne, J. (2000), Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, 1st ed. Free Press.
Is this your assignment or some part of it?
We can do it for you! Click to Order!
