We are by-products of lifestyle obsession. Brad Pitt says this while looking at GUCCI advertisement on the bus in a movie called “Fight Club”. We, indeed, live in a society inundated with all kinds of advertisement. A lot of critics say that advertising has a negative effect and I can’t agree with them more. In order to get consumers to open their wallets, companies do everything they can without thinking potential dangers they can bring to people. Therefore, I agree that advertising influences people’s behavior in a negative way.
One of the most obvious problems with advertising is that they make us buy things we don’t need, which can lead to excessive consumption. In advertising, companies describe their products as indispensable and must-have items in our life. They persuade us to believe that if we don’t have that certain product, we’ll have problems living our life. Furniture and little electronic devices are typical examples. Those companies often say that they’ll bring a huge convenience to our life but more often than not, they end up rotting in the attic forever.
Since advertising shows us only good aspects of life, it makes us believe that we have to live exactly the same way we see in the commercials. In commercials, they only show successful and luxurious lifestyle. Consumers unconsciously take those products as necessary to possess to show their success. For those who do not have the capability to buy them, it’ll make them think themselves as failure. This is clearly advertising’s bad influence on people.
One of the most serious problems of advertising is commercialization of sex. One can easily find advertisement that contains sexual contents or nudity. More often than not, those distorted images of sex keeps teenagers from establishing healthy sexual values. For example, companies implicitly suggest that sex is consumable and purchasable on the condition of buying their products. This will surely make people think that sex is a product rather interaction of two human beings with affection. To sum up, advertising has penetrated into our life so deep that it is almost inevitable for us to be exposed to commercials every single day. There’s no doubt that advertising has some positive aspects, however, the companies are getting more tricky and putting distorted thoughts into consumers. Thus, advertising can definitely be harmful to people’s behavior, for it can lead customers to excessive purchase, to wrong consumption and even affect values of the people. |