Advertisers would usually bring out the best of their brand aiming to manipulate the customer into buying their brand. They sometimes compare their brand to another brand to show that their brand is better. This is a cunning way to manipulate the customers into buying their brand.
Despite the manipulation of the consumer, commercials have many good points. “Advertising simulates demands and production which helps keep unemployment down” (Channel 4 leaflet on Adverts 10/10/00). They show the reader, listener, and viewer the positive points about products. Useful information can help us in what we need to buy for our homes. These adverts also inform us about discounts and bargain prices. More importantly it encourages competition between manufacturers and helps to keep prices down. When people buy the products the company makes profit. That is good for the countries economy. Another advantage of advertising is that it makes newspapers and magazines far more brighter and interesting.
Advertising is also good for promoting your business. It allows people to know about your business, and at the same time gives them information. This could help expand your management. Advertising also enhances the countries economic growth. If your business is nation-wide, more people are buying the brand and some of this goes through Inland Revenue. They will collect it in the form of V.A.T and if the profit increases more than the limit, the Inland Revenue will collect money in the form of Income Tax. This is also beneficial to the council in the form of rates.
Advertising provides employment for thousands of people. It also causes repetition between brands, so that the prices of products will reduce. When more and more people are buying the products, at a convenient price, this will also raise peoples standard of living. This finally gives shoppers a chance to decide which brand of products will suit them the best, at a suitable price.
One closing positive aspect would relate to the Broadcasting Industry. Adverts for different items increase the amount of money coming into the Television business. This is because every advert broadcast on TV, brings in a large sum of money. As a result the television Industry has a chance to improve the quality of programmes that we are watching.
Despite the good things about advertising there are also several bad things about advertisement. Adverts use Christmas most to manipulate the customers into purchasing the products. Many commercials can cheat us in different ways. For example the Argos TV advert shows many products at a low price to buy, but when you go there to purchase the products they usually run out of goods. “ Children at the age of 5 and under do not understand the difference between adverts and programmes, so the young children can be brainwashed.-(Daily Mail- 17th November 00). “Advertisers exploit people’s fears and complexes”.-(What is Advertising). Many of the adverts shown on TV use a lot of propaganda( propaganda is when commercials use a lot of strong emotional slogans). More importantly commercials are expensive and make products cost more. Another bad point about advertisement is that some products like Cigarettes and medicine can cause serious damage to a persons health.
Advertising exaggerates many things, which often misleads the shoppers or the viewers into buying their products, which they really don’t need. Although the facts may be written in small text, the customers may not read it. So they are being fooled into buying the product, without knowing what they are actually buying. For example: On a TV advert they show toys that talk, this may lead the shoppers into thinking that the toy really talks automatically. (Since they don’t show on TV a string to pull for the toy to speak). But when they buy the toy, then they realise the truth.
Brand names are expensive to buy, but the manufacturers know that people are going to buy their items. This is because, most teenagers wear their brand clothes, and the teenagers tend to reject a person if they are wearing a lower quality brand. So most teenagers buy the brand that all the other teenagers are wearing to be accepted and to fit into the group. Even though they could buy the similar item, at a lower price. This puts pressure on parents, to buy the clothes and shoes, from an expensive brand. Peer group pressure and this has a big impact, in what the parents buy for their child. The children do as much as they can to manipulate or convince their parents into buying their things.
Having studied this topic in its many form, TV’s, radios, and magazines, I have learnt that there are equal points of good and bad. Advertising is useful for letting people know about charities, or organisations helping the environment. Sometimes it is good to have adverts just as long as they do not have negative effects on children, and are informative. However in my opinion, due to the issues already discussed, I believe advertisement are bad and cause many problems, Finally another reason I mainly dislike TV adverts is because they spoil and interrupt television programmes.
