advertising is a necessary evil essay

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Advertising Makes Us Unhappy

• Nicole Torres

The more a country spends on ads, the less satisfied its citizens are.

The University of Warwick’s Andrew Oswald and his team compared survey data on the life satisfaction of more than 900,000 citizens of 27 European countries from 1980 to 2011 with data on annual advertising spending in those nations over the same period. The researchers found an inverse connection between the two. The higher a country’s ad spend was in one year, the less satisfied its citizens were a year or two later. Their conclusion: Advertising makes us unhappy.

• Nicole Torres is a former senior editor at Harvard Business Review.

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Nevada Today

Is advertising manipulative, professor laura crosswell breaks down strategies some advertisers use to mislead consumers to sell their products.

Advertising is in nearly every form of media, from newspapers to videos.

Find more answers here!

Advertising is more calculated, sophisticated, and personalized than ever before. If you look closely though, you will notice some time-honored techniques that still appear in ads today.

Here are a few tricks of the trade that motivate consumer behavior:

• Simplicity . Research shows that as our choices increase, so do our levels of anxiety and dissatisfaction. Advertisers simplify complex issues, often as either/or scenarios, to make decision-making less daunting.
• Emotion . Advertisements appeal to emotion rather than reason. Promotional material for a sleeping medication might show friends enjoying dinner together or a father engaged in family activities rather than focusing on the product itself. Ads are designed to remove thinking from the equation.
• Color . Color substantially influences immediate consumer judgments. Advertisers will use specific color strategies to shape brand perceptions and purchasing behaviors (i.e., Apple using white to convey clean, simple design).
• Deals . People are more emotionally invested in avoiding loss than earning reward. Flash deals and pseudo-urgency ads tap into our loss aversion and fear of missing out.
• Basic human needs . Advertisers appeal to basic human needs (such as food or sex) to trigger consumer cravings. Clever tricks like substituting glue for milk in cereal commercials, adding dish soap to soda for surface bubbles, or meticulously gluing sesame seeds to a hamburger bun make products appear more appetizing and drive feelings of unmet needs.
• Symbolism . Advertisers use symbolic codes to establish brand connections to certain values or identity systems. A laundry detergent label might feature a smiling baby wrapped up in a soft blanket to encourage product associations with safety/love/good parenting.

In sum, advertisements influence us in ways we don’t always realize. But knowledge is power! Stay informed, do your research, and attend to the ways in which commercial messages try to manipulate your purchasing behaviors.

Laura Crosswell is an assistant professor in health communications at the Reynolds School of Journalism. Her research focuses on the cultural implications of consumerism and persuasive texts with a specific concentration on public health messaging. Her research is showcased in Politics, Propaganda and Public Health: A Case Study in Health Communication and Public Trust .

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Sample details

• Advertisement,
• Advertising,
• Consequentialism
• Words: 1102

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Advertising Has Gone Too Far and Is Now a Necessary Evil.

“Advertising has gone too far and is now a necessary evil. ” This essay will discuss the topic “advertising has gone too far and is now a necessary evil”, especially referring to advertising directed at children. For the sake of this essay, “advertising” is defined as any public promotion of something, mainly products directed at children. “Gone too far” is defined as crossing the line of moral values and is now harming the safety and welfare of society. “Necessary” is defined as needed and inevitable, and something we cannot live without. Finally, “evil” is defined as something that is extremely unpleasant, harmful, and/or morally wrong.

This essay will discuss the ways in which advertising has gone too far, if it is indeed evil, and if it is necessary. First, however, the ways in which advertising has gone too far must be addressed. This essay will now enter into the question of advertising being evil – something that is extremely unpleasant, harmful, and/or morally wrong. Looking at this definition, we can see that advertising is in fact, an evil. The careful manipulation, the messages they show, the ways in which they brainwash these children, and even the mere idea of children advertising is extremely unpleasant, with experts calling advertisers “creepy”.

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The brainwashing alone is harmful in that it makes children’s minds compatible with whatever the advertising industry wants, and it is also extremely harmful through the mental health diseases and problems that it leads to mentioned earlier. And finally, it can clearly be seen that this negative impact the advertising industry is having on these young and vulnerable children – the future of this world – is certainly not moral for many of the reasons stated above when discussing its unpleasantness and harmfulness.

Therefore, using the definition of evil that this essay has used, advertising is indeed evil, and is also evil in other ways not already mentioned. Today’s society is putting money, profit, and sold products before the health and safety of children. Mere material items that in the end have no value, and the vision of success and riches, drives advertisers to jeopardize the health and safety, as this essay has already discussed, of children – the generation that will soon become the adults of this world.

If these children are being severely damaged now, how can we be sure they will be able to take on the responsibility of an adult when they leave childhood? These issues need to be addressed, as we cannot keep treating children the way we are today if we want the world to continue in an orderly and sequential fashion. Action needs to take place now. They are growing up now, and change needs to happen within approximately ten years if we are to succeed in fixing the problem. Otherwise, it will be too late. Another factor supporting advertising being evil is the issue of money. 40 billion is spent per year on advertising targeted at children, with this figure rising very radically. If, however, children advertising was regulated, then billions of dollars would be in our hands, which could be used to help the major global issues, such as poverty or the financial crisis. It has been estimated that just $13 billion per year would satisfy the world’s sanitation and food requirements. This money could be easily be obtained if advertising was regulated, still with billions left over for other global issues.

There are more important things than endangering children’s health and safety, and these things can be looked into. However, it is thought that advertising is necessary by many, and this question must also be looked into. Every product needs to have some sort of advertising if it is to sell, so therefore advertising would be necessary for the stabilisation of countless of jobs. However, if the product is not necessary, which almost all of the products advertised to these children aren’t as these products create the want and need, then neither is the advertising or anything to do with this product.

In this world today our children are consumed by the power of want, the desire to have and buy stuff, as they are told stuff will make you happy and cool and that it will give you worth to your life. Because of the importance that one has worth to their life, and the dramatic messages of advertising brainwashing our children, this want becomes ‘need’, and suddenly we lose our grip on the truth – that all we truly ‘need’ is food, water, oxygen, etc. Suddenly all we need becomes food, water, oxygen, SpongeBob Squarepants Mac ‘N’ Cheese, ladybug hairclips, a Kidspiration® 2. , a pirate ship park… Is this really what we want for our children? To be consumed in this world of ‘stuff’, thinking that their lives will only gain worth if they have everything, under the care of an advertiser with the only interest of money, and without any understanding of moral values and ethics? This is not necessary. We do not need all these products directed at children, and it has now come to the point that we, seeing what it is doing to our children, do not want them.

Advertising, as stated before, has gone too far, and it is now “necessary” to regulate children advertising if we wish to maintain a healthy and stable world. We can change the situation; advertising is not unavoidable and the problem can be solved with careful regulation and laws to support the health and safety of children. And, with the support of the government and justice system, the issue of loss of jobs can also be solved. Necessary, as stated earlier, is defined as ‘needed and inevitable, and something we cannot live without. Advertising is neither needed nor inevitable, and is something that we most certainly can live without. In conclusion, the reader can now see the ways in which advertising has gone too far, including how these vulnerable children are bombarded with it every day, with the messages of being either violent and bad or sexy and also the messages that stuff will make you happy, as well as the health risks and issues that it leads to.

Why and how advertising is in fact evil and how we could easily be spending the money on other global issues has also become clear, as well as the reasons why it is not necessary and the importance of regulating. Therefore, the statement “advertising has gone too far and is now a necessary evil” is true with a slight adjustment: “Advertising has gone too far and is now an unnecessary evil. ” {draw:frame}

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Do You Think Advertising is a Necessary Evil?

Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, when people started producing goods for profit, advertising has come to play a vital part so that these goods and services reach their intended target market. Advertisement these days plays an important role, especially now that we have so many different companies offering the same products!

Why Advertising?

As a business owner you would want your business to grow, you would want more and more people to know about your products and services! That’s where advertising comes in! Advertisements help a business to make their products or services well known and attract more consumers. From a consumer’s perspective, advertisements help in giving information about various goods and products and in some ways it’s like a direct communication between the consumer and the producer.

Cons of Advertising

Advertising has several pros and cons! Perhaps the biggest con of advertising and the number one reason why most people think advertising is a necessary evil is that it costs a lot of money! And ultimately this cost is transferred to the consumer! So when you go to your local store to buy something, consider that almost fifty percent of the cost of a product goes into advertising.

Another con of advertising is that it taps into the subconscious of a person and makes people buy things they don’t need. And this is why many people consider advertisements as a mode of lying; glorifying products that most people don’t need and telling people that if they don’t buy that product they wouldn’t become a part of the “cool” crowd! Plus, many people consider that advertising just adds to corporate greed!

Pros of Advertising

Advertising helps spread information about new products and services and helps in raising the standard of living for people! Advertisements also help in increasing the sale of goods which helps in keeping the prices in check too. Also, you as a consumer get a variety of information about the products and services of competitors and advertisements can help you make the right choice!

Advertisements on the internet help websites earn revenue! In fact, most websites survive mainly with the revenue that third party advertisements generate for them. You might have seen these advertisements on Facebook, YouTube and other websites. These advertisements are the only reason that most websites continue to run and provide you with a free service!

It’s not possible to call advertisement a necessary evil because it offers several pros as well as cons at the same time. And despite the fact that it does involve a lot of money, in today’s world we can’t do without advertisement!

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Home — Essay Samples — Business — Advertisement — Essay On Effects Of Advertisement

Essay on Effects of Advertisement

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Published: Mar 19, 2024

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Student Essays

Essay on Advertising- Meaning, Importance & Benefits

Advertising is everything in today’s life. It follows us from our mobile phones to display advertising on busy streets. It’s literally everywhere. It’s meant to advertise the product, bring customers and maximize the product value. The following Essay on advertising discusses the meaning, purpose and importance of Advertising along with benefits and disadvantages of advertising in our life. It’s quite helpful for children and students.

Essay on Advertising | Meaning, Purpose, Importance Benefits of Advertising

Advertising has become an integral part of our lives. It is hard to imagine going about our daily lives without encountering some form of advertising. It is everywhere – on television, on billboards, in magazines, and even on the Internet. But what exactly is advertising? And what is its history?

Advertising can be defined as a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume a particular product or service. Advertising can take many different forms, including print ads, television commercials, and Internet ads.

Advertising has been around for centuries. The first known advertisement appeared in the Bible. It was a message from King Hezekiah encouraging the people of Jerusalem to rebuild the city walls. This message was written on a piece of pottery and then placed in a public area for all to see.

The first form of advertising that we would today recognize as such appeared in the 17th century, with the advent of newspapers. The first newspaper ad appeared in London in 1652 and advertised a lost gold watch. Since then, advertising has grown exponentially, with billions of dollars being spent on advertising each year.

Today, advertising is more pervasive than ever before. We are bombarded with ads from the moment we wake up to the time we go to bed. They are inescapable and omnipresent. And while some people may find them annoying, there is no denying that advertising is an important part of our economy. Advertising is a necessary evil. It is annoying, and it can be intrusive, but it is also necessary for businesses to promote their products and services. And as consumers, we need to be aware of the advertising messages that are being communicated to us so that we can make informed decisions about the products we buy.

>>> Related Post:  “ Essay on Entrepreneurship ”

Impacts of Advertising in Life

Advertising has a huge impact on our lives. It can affect not only what we buy, but also how we think and behave. Advertising can influence the way we dress and the way we eat. It can also affect the way we view ourselves and the world around us. In some cases, advertising can even be dangerous, as it can promote products that are harmful to our health or that are not actually effective.

That being said, advertising is also a necessary evil. It is necessary for businesses to promote their products and services, and it can be used to raise awareness about important issues. Advertising can also be used for good, such as when it is used to promote products that are beneficial to our health or the environment.

So, while advertising can be a nuisance, it is also an important part of our lives. We need to be aware of the messages that ads are communicating to us, and we need to make sure that we are making informed decisions about the products we buy. Otherwise, we risk being manipulated by the ads that we see every day.

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Therefore, it can be rightly said that advertising in any form has become an integral part of our lives. It is something we cannot do without. Even though it can be annoying and intrusive at times, it plays an important role in our economy and in our ability to make informed decisions about the products we buy.

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