Pro And Cons Of Advertsing

Advertising is a message designed to promote and persuade people to buy a product, a service, or an idea. These advertising messages are on television, in newspapers and magazines, radio, Internet, and outdoor signs (World Book Online, 1). In American society the average person is targeted with at least 3,000 ad messages per day (Potter, 135). To aim these hundreds of thousands of messages at each indalvial, advertisers spend over 220 billions dollars a year. Breaking the billions of dollars down by the number of people in the American population it would equal out to be 700 dollars of manipulation money spent per person (138). With all these images, jingles, ideas, and desires added into our memory bank, one must consider the advantages and disadvantages commercial advertising has on the American public.

The impact of advertising on our society is a fiercely debated topic. Most public criticisms and debates on the negatives and positives in commercial advertising are for five major reasons. The first one is that “advertising is excessive” (139). The critics believe that there are too many messages the average person is exposed to every day, in the end we pay more money for

The second criticism is that “advertising manipulated us into buying things we don’t need” (139). This is because if forces us to buy things, often by projecting negative emotions such as fear, anxiety or guilt upon the consumer (Engel, 258). It is also, claimed that advertising plays with our basic Maslow’s human need for survival. Some say if we stick to our basic need such as, a set of clothes, a shelter, and some daily food then advertisers are asking us to buy what we don’t need. The opposing side feels that once we meet these basic needs, as Maslow said, then we “become concerned with other needs, such as safety, social, and self-actualization needs” in which adverting plays a role in (Potter, 139).

There are many impacts of adverting is our American society. One may regard advertisers as unscrupulous manipulators who distort America society and do or say anything to get our money. Others think advertisers are American heroes and keep our economy extremely simulated. The basic fact is that our society as we know it is based very heavily upon advertising and there is many negative impacts, but is not serious enough to outweighs the many positive social and economic effects of advertising that made America the greatest, most powerful, and richest.

The third criticism is that “advertising debases the language” (139). “Some people complain that advertising slogans misspell words, use poor grammar, and glorify slang” and do not believe this is the proper way to speak. For example, Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser “Wazzup” commercials that became everyday American slang. “They feel that when people do not speak properly, it is a sign of ignorance, and that is offensive to them” (139). The other side views languages as something that is always changing to meet the needs of the culture. By breaking the rules of grammar, spelling, and expression they feel that this is the only way new words enter the language (140). .

these advertised products and services because of these ads. Others believe that advertising is the price you pay to have other products and services for free, such as television.

To learn and apply the positives and negatives of commercial advertising to everyday life one must become more media literate. To gain advertisement literacy one must obtain four basic skills and have awareness of ads and your personal needs. These basic literacy skills are cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, and moral. “To possess cognitive skill one must have the ability to analyze an advertisement in order to identify key elements of persuasion and the knowledge to topics from many sources. Emotional skills a

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