Social effects of Advertising

The literary meaning of advertisement according to Encarta is "the public promotion of something such as a product, service, business, or event in order to attract or increase interest in it." Advertising is used to promote goods, services, images, and anything else that advertisers want to publicize. It is becoming a major part of mass media. At times, we may view it positively, at other times we may just skip or ignore it. In order to attract audience, advertisers use various techniques on their advertisement to make people aware of the firm's products, services, or brands. Although the methods used by advertisers are infinitely, they have a common goal to influence those who may become their customers to buy their products. An excellent advertisement will create a deep impression on its potential customers through particular techniques. The main function of an advertisement is to convey the reason for existence of a product and attract customers to buy. The word advertising is for communication only, whatever form it may be. Advertising is the only means of communicating with the masses and the word advertising is for communication only, whatever form it may be.

Sometimes the advertisers can make vague and ambiguous claims that may sound good. The most important factor in designing an Advertisement is that it should be addressed to a very well-defined target group to whom the product can be a good solution. People do not buy products; they buy solutions to their unaddressed problem. Hence, a good advertisement which presents the product as the solution to target groups is looking for, is very essential. It clearly implies that the advertisement should not over commit and should represent the problem and the solution very factually. "The advertising idea must be closely related to ideology of the targeted audience." (Salaimch, 2010)

Advertisements have many positive and negative effects which may not be noticed. The advertisement cost involves lot of money which comes from the customers. When the customers buy the products they pay for the products itself that includes the cost of production, packing, and developments. Here what is not known is the cost of advertisement. "It is logical to pay for the production and packing cost, but it is not understandable why the customers have to pay for the advertisement cost, which is hidden." (Advertising and its effect, 2011)

Ads will not really be negative, unless there may in some cases like the Red Bull ad where the content is quite derogatory where the man drinks Red Bull flies and opens his fly on top of the bird because the bird shat on him. That can be misleading because that is going too far with the tag for Red Bull. Condom advertisement cannot be misleading at all. The idea of showcasing an attractive couple and showing them in pleasure in fact encourages the use. Negative effects of ad would be when the communication is wrong, which seldom happens. It is really only in cases of Insurance advertisements, funds or generally speaking finances vertical advertisements. Keeping these hazards in mind even these corporate have started issuing a disclaimer immediately after the advertisements. "Cold drink companies are using aero stunts for their ads and also staking claim that the stunts are performed by qualified experts and hence not to be done by normal unqualified people." (25 Advertisements, 2007)

As we all know ads are those which are created for the attractiveness of the customers to increase sales. Nowadays the ads are not perfect and clear and not at all informative to the end users. The negative effects of ads are as follows:

Less Informative: The advertisements are less informative in case of the ingredients. They also lack in showing the cost, taste and quality of the product. On the basis of any model who acts in an advertisement no one can actually get the idea about the product. Similarly most of the advertisements do not show their side effect. Not every product is good for health; there are products which could have multiple malfunctioning to the human body itself. But, advertising agency and producers do not take much attention to these issues. Advertising should always focus on putting people at the heart of policy, communications and delivery to encourage behavior change. (Social Advertising in India, 2009)

• Degradation of Advertisement: When we talk about recent advertisements, we can see that they are done for the sake of being advertised for the company which manufactures the products. There is nothing as such called natural and which can grab audience's attention. Sometimes they are catchy because they are humorous. That makes sense but when we see advertisements which have no practical meaning but still hit the market just because of the brand names being used.

• Emotional feelings: Sometimes we come across advertisements which touch the feelings of human beings. Even there are numerous advertisements which sometimes cause harm to the human beings and affects the children more than others. Advertisements which are to children can be a good example here. When children are continuously prompted with advertisements of cigarettes, drinks then they are very interested to know what is inside it and want to try. So such things should be kept in mind when making advertisements.

Sometimes, with a view to attract the customers, the companies need to set trends and create images that customers will follow. After having established these, the customers have become addicted to the products which may not be needed for them. Today the adv conditioning and trend setting, judgments are made on what kind of clothes, shampoo, kitchen cleaner they use and not on who we really are. This leads to social discrimination and emotional insecurity. Hence the customers have to spend to be accepted. Advertisements are made in spirit of blind over consumerism without a soul. They should always be careful about the misleading advertisements. Social issues in advertisement have been the major concern of most of the general public. We should consider ourselves, our society and mostly the young minds that are continuously televised with so many advertisements through the learning means also. Strong rules and regulations should be implemented regarding showcase of advertisements in any form of media.

Bibliography

25 Advertisements. (2007). Business Studies , 64. 65.

Advertising and its effect. (n.d.). Retrieved May 8, 2011, from www.radessays.com: http://www.radessays.com/viewpaper/45343/Advertising_and_its_Effects.html

Salaimch, F. a.-S. (2010). The Effect of Television Advertisement on the behavior of Caned Food Can Food Consumer in Small Industries. European Journal of Social Sciences , 335.

Social Advertising in India. (2009, September 19). Article Base .