Oct 13, 2008
The Negative Effects of Advertising
by Bi3ard / General
Advertising may have some good points, but also there are some negative aspects too. While some of them are obvious, most of advertising potentially harmful facets go undetected.
Here are some of the most important:
1. Hidden Costs
You should know that advertising costs lots of money and that money comes from you - the consumer. When you buy a product, you pay for the product itself, which means its packaging, costs of the development, the machinery, the facility where the product has been made in, etc.
But what you probably don’t know is that by buying some product, you also pay for that its advertising as well. While it’s logical to pay objective costs, such as package or production, it’s not understandable why pay company to tell us about the product we already bought.
2. Lying to Customers
Advertisers know that they cannot outright make false claims, because any claim they make must be supported by some kind of statistic, according to the law. However, advertisers can and often do bend and curve the truth for their own benefit and in order to promote and advertise own product.
Company can exaggerate certain features of their products or they can make vague and ambiguous claims that sound good. Of course any negative features of the product won’t be mentioned.
Advertisements can be deceitful, especially for younger population who spends days in front of TV screen and watch aggressive and false advertising in between popular shows.
3. Conditioning and False Trendsetting
But, in order to hypnotize mass population, companies need to create trends that customers will follow. This is the true purpose of advertising today. Advertisers have found out that if they make a product, and make customers believe that their product will make them happy, sales will skyrocket. To fulfill that, advertisers must bombard customers with images and false claims for hours every day patiently, until people start to believe in certain things.
Once a trend and its image for advertising purposes have been created, conditioning can begin. Customers become addicted to products that they usually don’t need, and that’s the real image of our society of over consumerism. Today, because of ad conditioning and trendsetting, judgments are made on what kind of clothes people wear, what shampoo and kitchen cleaner they use, and not on who we really are. This leads to a certain degree of social discrimination and emotional insecurity, especially in younger population. In order to be accepted and cool, you need to spend.
4. Censorship
Advertisers want their ads shown on certain stations or websites that have certain content, because they want to attract a certain audience. Most mass media mediums have become nothing more than vessels for advertising, which means that advertising and companies that use it have become a powerful force as far as censorship.
But, how can advertising censor a television network’s programming? If you have a popular prime time show that’s a bit ‘sketchy’ toward certain things or views, that can be an obstacle for popular brand product that want prime time advertising in that show. Producers will never say: “Heck with the commercial!”
Instead they will ask show writers to rewrite sketchy parts that can ruin products’ reputation.
That basically means that our precious moments of fun or enlightenment are often replaced with long and boring commercial blocks, which basically means subtle censorship.
5. Degradation of Art
The last negative effect of advertising presented in this article I want to discuss is the complete degradation of some forms of art. No more creativity on TV. Everything you see or hear on it now is meant to sell you something.
Actors present you new products you should by. Models look more beautiful and younger with new makeup that you should - guess what – buy. You watch 90 minutes movie, but it’s extended to two hours because of commercials. Football game is 30 seconds of action followed by endless minutes of advertising agony.
Another problem are totally unimaginative commercials, made for zombies. They’re mostly not funny, not creative and they lack even smallest trace of art.
With so much money in their pockets, great corporations make fools of themselves because of these ads.
But they still occupy our precious time for fun and enlightenment.
It can be concluded that advertisers lost their compass long time ago. Advertisements are made in spirit of blind over consumerism. Without a soul. However, money from consumers pockets who are attracted to shiny goods, still keeps them breathing.
Next time you go shopping, or see an advertisement, ask yourself if you really need that product. Also, ask yourself what it all really costs.
And is it worth.
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