Communications and Media

The media has been known for the past few years to be the most effective method of passing information to the public, compared to the previous days for one to own a television set was expensive and only the newspaper and the radio were used by many people to pass information. Nowadays with the improvement on technology nearly every house can afford to have a television as they are cheap and affordable and many companies have decided to use the media especially the television to advertise their products and use each convincing way to persuade the customers to try their product and do their best to show how superior their product is compared to other products.

According to De Mooij (1994) he states   The purpose of advertising  such as greater volumes to be sold, to inform of new products and to establish competitive advantages  are interwoven with the working of the free market economy and the economies of scale and competitiveness that it brings. Advertising helps to build strong brands, stimulates innovation, and advertising expenditure has brought about an increase in the range and variety of media available. (P.503-504)

The goodness with advertising is it makes people aware of a product or service available in the market that are new that are improved and developed from time to time as the manufacturer does not expect the consumers to keep track of the new developments by themselves and it is their duty to inform them of the changes through advertising. Advertisement are also used to tell how superior a certain product is better than the competitors product, how easier it is to use, ingredients are superior than others, better than the product of its competitor, healthier for you and all those sweet words that will be used to describe how superior is the product. In the past people knew the superiority of certain brands and they trusted it because of the promised goodness.

As adverts keeps the community updated on the improvements of the existing products and the creation of new ones unfortunately everything that is good has its bad side as some of the adverts undergo the set rules and regulations that govern them and goes further to an extent of giving false promises to customers heaven that is not in the products.

 For example advertising is being used as a way of brainstorming people and some end up using inferior products that have been bought at a high price and in the real sense it is not worth it. Others have been forced to lower their products and sale at a loss due to competition from other products and makes people run for inferior products believing they will get the same effects and quality as advertised. The media can not educate people when it comes to what is wrong and what is right when it comes to products choosing because most of their income is generated from advertisements. Advertising have both positive and negative effect and with the current trends it can be difficult to quantify, as there are some effects that can be clearly seen as they arise over an extended period and affect the way our society functions. For example the short attention span behavior can be linked to a 20 second advertisement, which in turn dictates how adverts are to be developed in order to have the most impact and a long lasting impression in the mind of the audience targeted.

In game shows like The Price is Right, Supermarket Sweep and Lets Make a Deal, the endorsement of consumerism may be difficult to detect. Made ambiguous by a game plot, the advertising elements of these shows are usually not consciously recognized by the audience during the viewing. Yet in the show Lets Make a Deal, when certain products are glorified as legitimate prizes while others are labelled as Zonks  unwanted booby prize, there is clearly positive publicity for some of those commercial products categorized as legitimate prizes. Viewers can proceed to make powerful associations between desirability and these products, even though there is a lack of thorough consideration for the products strengths. By simply conferring a status on them, the game show effectively persuades its viewers through the peripheral route that the products it showcases are highly desirable in society, thus encouraging the mindless consumption of it.

What will make a product sell more will depend on the credibility of the sources who have used the product and who is advertising. Advertisers are very cunning people and can use all the methods to make sure their product sale more and the best example is some of the advertisers hire beautiful women with special qualities, use some of the famous songs and even cartoon characters to attract children products regardless of whether that product is good or bad the funs of those celebrities will just buy anything just for imitation. To curb this problem customers should always go for products that have been in the market for a long time and been approved to meet the markets standards even if the products are expensive. Better an expensive product that will serve the intended purpose well than a cheap one that wont serve the purpose well. This clearly states that the purpose of advertising does not include imposing harmful images, or claiming unnecessary promotion of product consumption but it is done to increase competition, freedom of choice from the diversity of products available in the bazaar and also to prop up innovation.

The negative impact of advertising depends with the advertiser after he has done thorough market research to discover what is missing and the weak area of their product and their target customers and audience awareness and up to this point they dont think on the negative aspects their advert will have on the target audience and the community at large. A good example is how the several industries target their audience and the manner it exploits their insecurities to sell their products, the way news agencies relays and present their news content, they report crime and political scandals, break down political issues to right and wrong debates, thus exploiting our insecurities of a safer world and we can only feel safer when we are informed, hence we watch the news.

Definitely the key aim of advertising intent is to make us buy their product and they achieve this by studying their target audience, getting to know us intimately, find our fears and desires and ultimately exploit them in order to achieve a profit margin. The problem with this is that by exploiting the fears and desires of an entire society, we continue to maintain a dysfunctional society full of insecurities, paranoia, cynicism and narcissism.

To end this behavior an advertising agent should be established to approve which advertisement should be aired on the media so as to prevent the negative impact in the society that is caused by advertisement imitation, bad competition and exploitation of the weaker sex in the society.

Lastly the advertisement of alcohol and cigarettes are advertised in a way that attracts minors to use it as they believe they will do something great like those people who are advertised using it. Such products should not be advertised in a way that will intrigue any person to use it and this will help to save our community from the effects of advertisement.