Synthesis Essay Advertising
Advertisements clearly play a huge role in society today; it seems as if there is a promotion for a new product around every corner. Advertising is how many companies are able to sustain their businesses and to gain more profits. However, some have criticized advertisements for their influence on people. While advertisements can draw in new customers, they can also cause people to be less mindful about what they are actually buying. Sometimes advertisements can even be misleading, which is a cause of scorn for some. Nevertheless, they are an effective way to convince potential buyers to purchase a product, which is good for business. Although advertisements may have a couple favorable effects, the overall impact of them on society is negative.
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People already know what items are actually necessary to buy, and products like those are rarely advertised because they don’t need to be. “For instance, nobody spends huge sums advertising flour. People will buy it even without it being advertised. But soft drinks may stop selling after a few months without adverts. The need for it is created by the advert” (Source F). If something was actually necessary to a person, then the person would buy it without the need for an advertisement promoting it. Advertisements often create a mindset within consumers telling them that they need a certain good or service when, in reality, they don’t. This mindset is another way that people wind up brainwashed by ads. Certainly it seems it as if buying something unnecessary isn’t always a bad thing, aside from the fact that it is typically a waste of money; however, some advertisements don’t just promote unnecessary items, but they promote harmful items, such as cigarettes. On top of giving them a profit, “advertising also had less quantifiable benefits for cigarette companies: it promoted the continued social acceptability of smoking and encouraged the incorrect belief that the majority of people smoke” (Source B). There is no doubt that cigarettes are bad for a person’s health, so it is easy to see how advertising cigarettes could be dangerous to people, especially adolescents who grow up seeing cigarettes as part of life. Advertisements for destructive products have become more and more common, and as they do, the act of using those products becomes more and more common, too. As a child, I watched my mother smoke cigarettes and drink beer. If she hadn’t been exposed to advertisements that promoted both cigarettes and beer, along with a society that accepts those things, I believe that she would have never started smoking and drinking in the first place, which would have been better for our
People already know what items are actually necessary to buy, and products like those are rarely advertised because they don’t need to be. “For instance, nobody spends huge sums advertising flour. People will buy it even without it being advertised. But soft drinks may stop selling after a few months without adverts. The need for it is created by the advert” (Source F). If something was actually necessary to a person, then the person would buy it without the need for an advertisement promoting it. Advertisements often create a mindset within consumers telling them that they need a certain good or service when, in reality, they don’t. This mindset is another way that people wind up brainwashed by ads. Certainly it seems it as if buying something unnecessary isn’t always a bad thing, aside from the fact that it is typically a waste of money; however, some advertisements don’t just promote unnecessary items, but they promote harmful items, such as cigarettes. On top of giving them a profit, “advertising also had less quantifiable benefits for cigarette companies: it promoted the continued social acceptability of smoking and encouraged the incorrect belief that the majority of people smoke” (Source B). There is no doubt that cigarettes are bad for a person’s health, so it is easy to see how advertising cigarettes could be dangerous to people, especially adolescents who grow up seeing cigarettes as part of life. Advertisements for destructive products have become more and more common, and as they do, the act of using those products becomes more and more common, too. As a child, I watched my mother smoke cigarettes and drink beer. If she hadn’t been exposed to advertisements that promoted both cigarettes and beer, along with a society that accepts those things, I believe that she would have never started smoking and drinking in the first place, which would have been better for our