Advertising Education Or Essay, Research Paper

Lets talk about images for example, most advertisements for clothing

(i.e. bathing suits etc), show shapely thin women and men. This has

led our country to think that fat is demeaning and not socially

accepted. This type of advertising has caused everyone to want to look

like the people in the ads. Diets of all sorts have been developed to

try to meet these expectations. But when their goals are not reached it

causes depression, low self-esteem that in turn causes a poor image is

developed. In my opinion these advertisements have a negative

outreach. Who is to say only thin people look great? Advertisements

do! These ads also have created anorexic teenagers, which has lead to

serious health problems and even death. Advertisements often do not

explicitly urge the consumer to buy a given product; rather they

promise that the products will enhance a person^s life. Opening a whole

range of desiderata including youthfulness, attractiveness, social

grace, security, success, c! onviviality, sex, romance and the

admiration of others. (Parenti page 204) Advertising can also be

educational and rewarding with regards to prices and who offers the

best deal. One such publication that informs consumers of the

best-tested and best-priced items is Consumers Magazine. This magazine

has a test facility that tests various items of same kind without bias

and reports to the consumer via there magazine. Advertising is not

created and used just to provide a smug example of public morality,

advertising is honest because it has to be. (Wood page 225). What I

mean by honesty is the product information is not all ways how it is

displayed. Lets address the issues of ^What we care about^, the way we

raise our children, our ideas of right and wrong conduct, these in my

view are all together. Let^s take a look at liquor and tobacco

advertising. The image of the Marlboro Man is one example. This type of

advertisement depicts a buff, handsome, cool man smoking a cigarette.

What message is this conveying to our young people? That it is cool to

smoke. We all know it has been proven that smoking cigarettes can cause

cancer. I would now like to address all the violence, sex and bad

language that is seen and heard on television and radio (i.e. talk

shows, MTV, etc.). This type of media attracts all various kinds of

people to listen and watch. While the people are entrained in the media

being provided the producers throw in a commercial advertisement. This

type of advertisement causes the consumer to subliminally change they

opinion of various items. Another type of media that the advertisers

use is the Dance shows o! n televisions such as soul train. This not

only is a display of immoral conduct of our young people then the

television stations throw in a commercial advertisement aimed at our

young people. A recent media event that was used to force

advertisement on the population was when the President of the United

States was going through the Monica scandal. Not only did the actions

of the President display immoral conduct, which certainly sends a poor

message to the people of the world. While the public was entrained in

the event the producers once again strategically placed ads in low

points causing sway in public opinion on various items. I^m not saying

that all advertising is negative. The media also sends out some good

messages such as be cool stay in school, anti-cigarette commercials

that depict the health hazards and negative efforts on the family. We

as the consumer in having to evaluate the good from the bad and the

pros and cons of advertisement must evaluate what we truly need and

what is the best product. In making this determination we need to

ensure to make a morally sound decision using good judgement and to

feel good about ourselves. Most of my views and opinions agree with

Shudsons. I like his statement, that advertising is neither misleading

and manipulative as its critics claim nor as worthwhile as effective as

it advocates assert (Shudson page 229) Advertising cannot exist without

the consumer. If the consumer does not purchase the product of

misleading ads this will show the companies that using this type of ad

will not work. In turn the consumer will be able to get a better

product or service.

Work Cited:

Spurgin, Sally Dewitt ^?Advertising^?, Michael Parenti and James Playsted Wood and Michael Shudson ^?Strategies for Argument ^?, 1992 by Prentice-Hall Inc. A Simon & Shuster Company, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632