ADVERTISING AND CULTURE
Advertising may be one of the most important marketing tools available tocorporate sector today but it is certainly not the most ethical one. Thereason advertising has come under attack from various sections of thesociety is because of the images it projects and the way they ultimatelyaffect all of us. If we carefully analyze advertising campaigns andtechniques, we would notice that advertising is intricately connected withthe principle of consumption. Consumers would buy anything thatadvertisements say is good for them including culture and values. In muchthe same way as a consumer would be forced to buy a product, media today isbeing used to effectively transform cultural values and sell images thatare often misleading. Associate a good-looking guy with a cigarette and yousend a message to the public- smoking is the "in" thing. Even though we allknow smoking is injurious to health, we would still be tempted to give it atry based on the images that advertisements project. In PBS's Merchants ofCool, critics thrash advertising for promoting false values. Media criticMark Crispin Miller criticizes advertising techniques because of the waythey influence culture and create anxiety among youth. He says:
Embedded inadvertising's messages about goods and services are the cultural roles andcultural values that define our everyday life (Stern, 1992). Forthis reason, advertisers use similar techniques to convey their messageregarding a product or a tradition. Advertisements no longer give us a chance to develop ourauthentic self; rather all of us try to be like one of the persons we seein advertisements. But social critics feel this kind of consumer-behavior-shaping cannotbe termed as 'ethically correct' because it creates social class divisions. This is where the problem arises aswe realize that advertisements are not merely used to satisfy needs butmore to create desires. But they are unawareof the fact that they are no only purchasing the product, but also thecultural values and social symbols that are attached with that product. For example, when advertisersattach certain social class value with a product or service, it is done tomake consumers think that acquiring this product would enhance their socialstatus. For example Rolls Royce would always be the ultimate symbol ofaffluence and Rolex elevates you social position because it is the onewatch you got to have if you have money. " (page 4)Susan Bordo's essay, "Hunger as Ideology" captures the downside of today'sadvertising techniques especially where female images are concerned andmaintains that advertisements create extreme anxiety in women today becausethey promote misleading images of beauty. While this is certainly favorable for sales increase, it mayultimately hurt the consumers' budget. Solomon (1988) haspointed out: As long as you are unable to decode the significance ofordinary things, and as long as you take the signs of your culture at facevalue, you will continue to be mastered by them. Authentic self therefore remainsburied under heaps of false cultural values.
Common topics in this essay:
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,
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Acceptance Essays
