Nicole (Advertising)

Advertising
------ Good or Bad?

Advertising, we see and hear it every day, we talk about it all the time. It is a form of communication used to influence individuals to purchase products of services or support political candidates or ideas. (Advertising, Wikipedia) It is the main way for people to get to know about the goods they want to buy. Also, most of the companies use advertising to introduce their products. Advertising has become a very important part of people’s life. Even though, it still has many negative impacts to the society. This essay will talk about the different influence of advertising. It will first have a brief introducing of advertising and its three different roles in society which included economic role, information role and entertainment role (Sheehan, 2004). And then the essay will discuss about the positive and negative influence of advertising to the society respectively.

Advertising performs different roles in the society. More specifically, it plays economic role, information role and entertainment role.

The economic role of advertising in the society should be highlighted. One of advertising’s key economic roles is to help company to sell products. Advertising helps to sell product and services by providing consumers with ideas and styles of living that can be achieved by using the products and services. These ideas are often seen as superior to the consumers’ “status quo” (Nicosia, 1974 as quoted in Kim S, 2004). Additionally, advertising could advances competition between companies in the market. Then consumers can get reasonable price for the products and services.

As an information role, advertising has a great deal of influence on the customers. Generally, customers start gets to know a product through advertising. It provides information about the products which helps customers making decision. For example, customers can compare same products with different brand through advertising.

The final role is entertainment role. As we know, advertising normally be presented through the media, such as television, newspaper, magazine or internet. So companies will try to make the advertisement as attractive as possible to get more attention from customers. Therefore, most of the advertisements not only have their basic functions but also have become to entertainment. Moreover, there are many advertising competitions in the world which could improve the standard of advertising, for instance the one club which is an American organization who encourage good advertising (The one club, Wikipedia).

For most of people, advertising is the main way to know the products. Along with the development of advertising, advertisements are everywhere nowadays. People can find it on TV, internet, newspaper, shops, even in the bus, train and underground. Thus, it is very convenient for people to get information about the products or services they want to purchase.

The information provided by advertising also can help customers to make decision to buy products or services. Meanwhile, it could teach knowledge and guide customers a different life styles. A study by a research company, Wirthlin Worldwide (1999), found that 87% of respondents to a recent survey agreed with the statement:” Before I make a major purchase, I spend a lot of time finding out as much information as I can about which brand is best.” (Sheehan 2004)

Furthermore, advertising can promote market demand. A good advertisement can inspire consumer’s desire to purchase. Then the sales of the market will be increased at the same time (Lee 2008). That is one of the reasons why many companies are willing to pay big amount of money on advertising.

Although advertising could help consumers make purchase decision, some people think that advertising encourages the customers to buy the products they do not really need. Besides some of the products are not as good as they promised in the advertisement. Take slimming pill as an example, some products make physically implausible promises such as “lose 10 pounds in 10 day” which could attract the consumers who are desperate to lose weight.

Advertising also has some unintended effects to the children. It could cause some psychological and physical problems. Some children are confused by the fact in the live and fiction in the advertisements. Some children may have stereotypical view of sex roles because of the influence of advertising. Experts suggest that babies ages are under 2 should not watch advertising. Because babies need human contact to develop socially and emotionally which include voice, image, touch and smell. But advertising only has voice and image (American Academy of Pediatrics, 1995 as quoted in Kim S, 2004). The children who watch TV more hours will have fewer hobbies. And advertising can make the children unhealthy such as obesity. They also could learn some bad things from the advertising like drugs, alcohol and early sexual activity. (Sheehan, 2004)

There always are some people complain about the advertising like deceptive advertising or its bad influence to the children. The customers have their own judgment. They have purchasing right to decide whether to buy the product or not. In addition, not all of the advertisings are bad for the children. Some of the advertisings are quite educational such as public-service announcement.

To sum up, advertising has a lot of negative influence. But generally speaking, advertising are still beneficial to the society. Apparently, it needs to be improved. There are a lot of rules and regulations about advertising. But the regulations system still not consummate. Along with the development of advertising industry, advertising will become better and much more helpful to the society.

Ruonan HAO (Nicole)

Bibliography

American Academy of Pediatrics (1995) as quoted in Kim Sheehan (2004) controversies in contemporary advertising, Sag Publications, Inc. P.173
Definition of Advertising, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising
Fuyu L.(23 Dec 2008). ‘guang gao dui she hui de ying xiang’, http://www.yewuyuan.com/article/200812/200812230046.shtml
Introduction of the one club, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Club
Kim S. (2004). ‘Advertising’s Roles in Society’, Controversies in Contemporary Advertising, Sag Publications, Inc.
Kim S. (2004). ‘Getting older younger: children and advertising’, Controversies in Contemporary Advertising, Sag Publications, Inc.
Nicosia (1974) as quoted in Kim S (2004) Controversies in Contemporary Advertising, Sag Publications, Inc, P.4-5