The Power of Advertising (rd2)

Thanh Nguyen
October 4, 2010
The Power of Advertising (rd2)

    Today, advertising has become an important part of modern business and industry. As the economy growing, advertising businesses are also growing fast. Everywhere we go, we see ads: on walls, on TV programs, on radio, on the internet, and even on the ground. But the question being asked is what impacts ads have on our society? Does it really affect us in a negative way? Or does it help us to become more aware? [Thesis]From my personal experience, even though ads have some negative impact, yet they in general have positive social and economical impact on our society [Thesis].
   
    Advertisers today have their ways to target consumers. Now, everything is computerized. Advertising companies have all the tool for collecting the data they need for advertising purposes. Advertising Companies use strategy to target certain group of consumers for a certain product using terms that we can easily understand. They use all the approaches trying to promote their sales. In fact, advertising itself is very expensive. The average cost of a thirty-second commercial on television is about 200,000 dollars during prime-time. It could be one of the reasons why the price of some products is so high. Even movies and television shows enjoy huge profit of replacement money just to depict a product in the story line or on bodies of actors. But the return profit is much bigger comparing to the cost of advertising. It contributes greatly to the growing of our economy.    
   
     Ads could also be use for an educational purpose. In our class forum and discussion, Krizia Bawilan mentioned that ads help us to be more aware with smoking and other illegal drugs. I totally agree that that statement. Today, teens’ drinking and smoking have become a bad influence on our society, especially our children. Children are growing in the society fully of bad influences no matter where they go. For instance, I went to pick up my little cousin yesterday at Washington Middle School. While waiting for her inside my car, I saw a guy who is around his 20’s wearing a graphic shirt that said “weed, I am smoking it!” on it. Apparently, smoking weed is definitely illegal in Hawaii.  understand that a thirteen years-old may not be fully understand why smoking weed is so bad, but at least they have some ideas about what smoking weed do to them thanks to educational ads. Just imagine back in time before advertising was populated, that graphic t-shirt could do a lot of damages because people did people did not have the knowledge about weed if they did not try it themselves. Today on media, we see and hear a lot about smoking weed and what it can do to people mind. Last week, I saw an anti-weed commercial on www.youtube.com. The commercial is about the two male friends. They went to a party with a bunch of other friends. At the party, their friends was tempting them to hit weed the first time and they took it. After a several hits, they began to hallucinate, and see themselves driving their cars on the walls at the speed of 120 miles/hour. At the end of the video, these guys decide to take their imagination to reality and went racing after the party. One guy got into car accidence during the race and was hospitalized. About the other guy, he regretted  because he talked his best into smoking weed with him and got into a car accidence while he could say no to weed when his friends give him the first hit. Because of educational ads like this, we are more aware of the consequences of smoking weed, thus we can avoid it.

    Another positive impact of ads is to help us to be up-to-date. Today, many people are into fashion and daily trend. Whether we like it or not, fashion always exist for centuries. It can never be denied that we are eaten up by the fast growing advances and updates in the fashion world. Fashion ads now become more and more important to fashion lovers. Fashion ads help people become more aware of the new growing trend of fashion. Currently, fashion field is growing faster than ever. In our class discussion, David Guerrero stated that “advertisements brainwash us into buying their products”.  I have to disagree with him. I do agree that ads are very diverse today. Sometimes it makes us confuse because there are too many options to choose from. However, that is when the decision making comes in place.  The diversity of ads gives us the power to choose what the best is for us. For example, fashion ads become more diverse than ever. The variety of different styles helps people to combine things over and make up their own styles for the latest trend. In the Old Navy ad I saw on television yesterday, a female was choosing her sweater for work. At her work place, there were four other ladies who were wearing different stylish sweaters walking behind her when she was working in the background. At the end of the commercial, the narrator made a statement that said “only you, only at Old Navy!” The commercial was okay in general, however the statement “only you, and only at Old Navy!” at the end of the commercial was not totally true because of anyone of us could get nice sweaters like the one in the commercial at other apparel shops. It is not necessary that we can only buy nice sweater only at Old Navy. This type of fallacy falls into generalization fallacy category. However, the commercial did give us a lot of information of the new growing trend of sweaters. Thus, we can use it as a guideline to create our own styles.

    From my personal experience, I think the statement “In general, ads or commercials ultimately have a negative impact on our lives” is just a different point of view from different people. To me, advertising plays a vital role in our daily life. It gives us the knowledge and the power to choose what is the best for us. So, the bottom line is decision making. As long as we are careful in our decision making, ads will come in handy in helping us choosing what is best for our needs and wants. That’s the power of advertising.

Work-cited

Brock,  John. “Advertising directs our lives, but where are we headed?”. The Post and Courier. March 6, 2008. <http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2008/mar/06/advertising_directs_our_lives_but_where_32776>. October 2, 2010.

Bawilan, Krizia. "Yes, ads have negative impacts!". Online Posting, 9/27/2010. Laulima Discussion. 10/04/2010.

Guerrero, David. "Causes and Solutions". Online Posting, 9/27/2010. Laulima Discussion. 10/04/2010.

Iqbal, Maaz.  “Social & Economic Impacts of Advertising”. Enzine Articles. March 29, 2010.  <http://ezinearticles.com/?Social-and-Economic-Impacts-of-Advertising&id=608191>. Sep 30, 2010.