Mark Klinker

5/1/03

Essay 1.10

Controversial Ads

Every second of the day, no matter where you are, you are influenced by advertisements.  As we drive down the highway listening to the radio we hear advertisements through commercials and look out the window to see huge billboards.  When surfing the internet advertisements “pop up”, and while watching television advertisements are viewed even more.  These advertisements focus on catching the eye of the beholder.  Some focus their attention towards adults, some towards kids, and some are accidentally catching both eyes.  The advertisement industry has now started to promote sex and comedy as a way to sell their items.  Billboards now show scantily clad women over one hundred feet tall on the sides of highways and sexual oriented advertisements now “pop up” on the internet while visiting various sites.  Television now has a Miller Lite commercial with women wrestling in water and Budweiser had a commercial with frogs speaking to promote beer.  Trojan Condoms advertises with exploding geysers to promote their condoms.  Monetary gains may be occurring because some believe sex and comedy sells, but because of these advertisements our children are being influenced to act inappropriately at a very young age.  

Children do not need to be influenced by this advertising.  “The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University released December 17 a report saying that America’s youth has been overexposed to alcohol advertising” (Craig).  Beer companies absolutely advertise toward adolescents. One has to think about who the Budweiser frog campaign was for.  “The WB has alcohol ads during ‘Dawson’s Creek’ and ‘Smallville’, and that’s a thirteen to eighteen year old audience.  It could be because it’s prime time, but it’s questionable.”(Craig)  Why do companies need to aim alcohol towards the youth of our world today?  

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        These alcohol companies know exactly what they are doing.  It was found that “if you look at the profit margins of alcohol manufactures, a significant portion are underage consumers. They know they’re advertising for adolescents” (Craig).  Under aged drinking accounts for nearly fifty-three billion dollars worth of revenue for alcohol companies each year.(Miller)  “Twenty-two million teenagers – some seventy-seven percent of all twelve to eighteen year-olds in the U.S. (we didn’t even count kids under twelve or between nineteen and twenty) watch television after 9 p.m. when booze ads routinely grace the airwaves.” (Miller) “The Center on Alcohol Marketing and ...

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