Advertisments do more harm than good

[Senex Civis]

Advertising has grown to be an industry worth many billions of dollars across the world. Almost all public space has some advertisements in sight and all forms of media, from newspapers to the internet, are also filled with adverts. Whilst this helps companies sell their produces, and helps consumers to learn what is on offer, many believe that this huge amount of advertising can be harmful. It may make people want too much, or things that they cannot have, or it might make them feel inadequate when they don't have something. Research shows that children can be particularly open to these kinds of risks

There are many arguments for and against this for example,

Pros:

• The levels of advertising are just too much these days. You cannot walk down the street, ride on a bus, watch television or read your email without seeing advertisements. People shouldn't have to have their lives attacked by a huge quantity of information they might not want.
• Advertising leads to many people being overwhelmed by the endless need to decide between competing demands on their attention – this is known as the tyranny of choice or choice overload. Recent research suggests that people are on average less happy than they were 30 years ago - despite being better off and having much more choice of things to spend their money on. The claims of adverts crowd in on people, raising expectations about a product and leading to inevitable disappointment after it is bought. Shoppers feel that a poor purchase is their fault for not choosing more wisely, and regret not choosing something else instead. Some people are so overwhelmed that they cannot choose at all.

Etc.


Cons:

• No-one is forced to put advertising on their property - for many companies it is an important part of their income. Football teams would have much less money if they were not sponsored. And no-one is forced to look at advertising - you can turn the TV off between shows, or just flick past adverts in newspapers. If you don't want to see the adverts, then just ignore them.
• Advertising has a positive role to play in modern society, helping us choose between competing goods. Many adverts are drawing our attention to products with new features, for example more powerful computers, telephones which are also cameras and music players, or foods with added vitamins. Other adverts try to compete on price, helping us seek out the cheapest or best value products. In most cases advertising does not make us go shopping – we would be planning to buy food, clothes, gifts and entertainment anyway. What advertising does is to help us make better decisions about how to spend our money, by giving us more information about the choices available.

And so on, the list is almost endless.

have fun kiddies.

[Henry of Grosmont]

Well, you should've checked first what do Pros. and Cons. mean first...

As for the topic, don't see anyhting wrong with advertisement. a) it, actually, helps the business. b)Don't want to watch them? Then don't do it. Plain and simple.

[Senex Civis]

I'm are of what pros and cons are...

[Henry of Grosmont]

I'm are of what pros and cons are...

Then you shouldn't be listing negative in the Pro column...

[Senex Civis]

Then you shouldn't be listing negative in the Pro column...

I think you misunderstood, [I]pros[I] is for saying advertisement is bad, cons is saying it's good

[Henry of Grosmont]

I think you misunderstood, [I]pros[I] is for saying advertisement is bad, cons is saying it's good

I think you should check what both, pro and con mean. Again...

[Heinz Guderian]

I'm are of what pros and cons are...

i dont think those words mean what you think they mean

[Voodo chile]

I have no major problems with advertising. I'm not bombarded with it. I mean you get a bit of junk mail a few times a week. On some buses you get adds on the back. Although i particularly hate it when that thing pops up near the start of a youtube video or if your watching a vevo hosted one and you have to watch an add first. People who feel bad about themselves when they see advertising are lying. If someone else has something you don't, toughen up. Life's not fair.

You got pros and cons mixed up btw.

[Charrua]

This is an interesting base of argumentation, that I was just thinking nowadays. I'll put it more specified in a future (we)blog of my authorship.

In fact, advertisements do bring a very odd and non-logical idea - that one should consume, or buy, what she/he doesn't need. The 'logic' of advertisement is that you must need to acquire this certain product, for many abstract reasons that simply do not apply.

From beginning, let me put it from another perspective. This forum is about this computer game that spans the history of mankind, including all these mods, something like from 5th century b.C. to 18th century A.D. What I think most fascinating, is the fact that after the industrial revolution, we basically has surpassed a phase in economical history - the age of scarcity.

Imagine yourself as a peasant in a farmland colony of romans. Supposing that crops were alright, and depending where were you, you would have access to the basic needs of physiology (feeding/drinking, sheltering, warming, sleeping and such) in a very sensitive way - one would probably have two, at most three, changes of a 'set' of clothing (toga, trousers, and such), and many would have acquired five or six different set of clothes during a whole lifetime. Many would die without ever wearing a shoe. Many others would never eat more than 10 different food types (depending of the wilderness of the region) during whole lifetime, and so goes on. Well, since all labor was essentially of handcrafted nature, the age of scarcity was on. Tools would be so important, that many people used their tools from great-grandfathers, in five or more generations.

I do hear tales from my grandfathers, as their fathers knew everything, from smithing to make tools, to planting, drying grains, cropping, leatherworking, and all those names that nowadays resound as things from MMPORPG's.

Well, than came the age of excess! Why excess? Well, there is no excuse for hunger in the world, and I am sure people know it - what we do have is lack of marketing those resources (marketing from market doing, market is the way to have a good reach a consumer, not the advertisement [/i]per se[i]) in a more 'human' way. Efficiency is forsaken in the name of costs allocation, and that is more clearly seen with the 'boom' of chinese plastic utilities ('tupperware' and such) that, due to 'costs', is more 'cheap' being exported and travelling thousands of miles in hulking ships across many roads and ways, to get to one's store more conveniently. Well, this is the heart of it - costs.

Advertisement than reaches the pinnacle of this unlogical behavior - because it is the only way to sell something out of the pure cultural needs. Why some single guy would need a huge car with hundreds of horses (horsepower...) when he moves around less than 150kg of mass everyday? Why would I need to buy sneakers from this special brand for NBA players, when I lame at basketball? Why why why? The because's are often vague and poor-represented. And this gets worse as there is no sense in expending more energy into something that will not allow enough energetic gain to justify it.

Since the advent of media-overpower, the idea of 'ignoring the ads' is becoming more and more impossible. I remember an episode of Futurama, where Fry had this strange dreams, and he learned that in the capitalism of 30th century, the ad's were directed to the subconscious, so every dream was in fact an advertisement. Well, considering the billions of money units (why always dollars?!?!?!) spent on marketing (NOW that worldwide known term...) instead of, for example, better energy balance in the product, extending the life span of the product (yet, it is much the opposite...), and other more logical moves.

In short of shortening, the advertisement is a tool that exists only because there is free-market economics. Out of it is worthless.

[Caesar_1991]

I was watching a video in Anthropology today on advertising in Papa New Guinea. These people would go out into the mountains and try to sell their wares to the people. The advertisements erode their traditional values and way of life for the people. It also creates many social problems back home.

[Senex Civis]

They can have 2 meanings you know, they change meaning in context with the question. If you still don't see that your very narrow minded indeed

[Henry of Grosmont]

They can have 2 meanings you know, they change meaning in context with the question. If you still don't see that your very narrow minded indeed

The lack of education is astounding... I'm off.

[Senex Civis]

Pros and cons are arguments for or against a particular issue. Pros are arguments which aim to promote the issue, while cons suggest points against it. The term has been in use since the 16th century and is a shortening of a Latin phrase, pro et contra, which means “for and against.” Considering the pros and cons of an issue is a very useful way to weigh the issue thoughtfully and reach an informed decision.

http://www.wisegeek.com/m/what-are-pros-and-cons.htm

I thInk thats my point proven.

[Sadreddine]

It may make people want too much, or things that they cannot have, or it might make them feel inadequate when they don't have something.

But this is precisely what is pursued by advertising in a capitalist system. It is sanctioned and encouraged by the system itself, and thus generally accepted.

'Creating new needs' is one of the basic aims of marketing. Moral issues are left aside as the capitalist market is only about profitability.

[basics]

Senex Civis,

The golden rule for anyone who enters business for themselves as well as for them already in business is to maximise the selling potential of that, meaning that advertising if affordable is an essential in today's world. The business that stands still whilst its competitors advance ultimately falls or is taken over.

Vast amounts of money are spent to keep even the largest at the forefront of public awareness and must be if they are to remain competetive. In doing so it must never be forgotten how many are employed by them and most who are, at the end of the day, also are customers of the advertiser. So really it is a matter of choice which is always in the hands of the buyer to purchase whatever attracts them.

Sadly such is the power of advertising that buyers forget the purchasing power they have, to go into debt to satisfy their own must have attitude. Is that the fault of the advertiser? No, I don't believe it is.

[Sadreddine]

Sadly such is the power of advertising that buyers forget the purchasing power they have, to go into debt to satisfy their own must have attitude. Is that the fault of the advertiser? No, I don't believe it is.

I am interested in this part.

So drug dealers are not to blame?

[basics]

" I am interested in this part. So drug dealers are not to blame? "

Ibn Rushd,

Well if looking at Boots the Chemist chain is it not true that they indeed advertise vigorously but I assume that you forget that in your quest to trip me up. Illegal drug dealers to my knowledge don't have access to advertising unless of course it is by word of mouth and that choice is then that of the user, is it not?

Taking it a little further though the power of advertising surely whets appetites but any addiction is not of their making rather those that are addicted to having to have. The drug dealer intentionally targets the nonaddicts to make them the opposite, in other words to become addicts which then deprives them of choice. In the case of the former choices still remain open to them.

[Big War Bird]

I'm pretty sure the idea of keeping up with the Jones didn't originate with the advent of the billboard.

AS for the pro/con thingy. The confusion is this this - the OP set up a double negative by phrasing his thesis the way he did (advertising is harmful) coupled with a pro (it is harmful) and con (it isn't harmful) thus making for a confusing argument construction.

[removeduser_487563287433]

The post's topic is irrelevant. Advertisements are not out there to do good.

[Big War Bird]

The post's topic is irrelevant. Advertisements are not out there to do good.

And I thought I was cynical.