Free sample essay on Advertising. We cannot think of the modern world without advertising. It is one of the constitutive elements of modern living and in terms of costs involves astronomical figures. In consumerist society it is all the more significant.
Advertising is an indispensable part of business and trade. In its extended sense, it is as much applicable to the world of politics and religion. It is the backbone of trade and business. Here, however, we will confine ourselves to the more common world of business, where one is struck by the intensity and subtlety of the advertising it resorts to. Perhaps it is inherent in mass production for extensive markets. In fact, business and trade thrive on large-scale advertising. One thing generally leads to another. International trade was made possible, thanks to the unprecedented development in the means of transport and communication. It, in turn, created the giant publicity firms and advertising agencies.
The main function of all advertising is bringing new products or services to the knowledge of their prospective customers and promoting their sales and use. This is meant to do good business. Nothing is wrong in this—but trouble arises when it is exaggerated. Dishonest claims are made by the manufacturers for their wares with the express intention of making profits by cheating the customers. As we open our newspapers, we find page after page of several advertisements.
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The danger here is that people are misled by dishonest people who push up sales of useless things. People think that, whatever comes in print is true. They also think that when a thing is said to be good, it must be good. The advertising people are familiar with this psychology of the customers. They know that if a lie is repeated a hundred times, it sounds like truth and after a while it is taken for truth. This strategy is dangerous for public health and consumption standards.
Furthermore, unscrupulous advertising attempts to vitiate the psychology of potential buyers. They do marketing of such goods which adversely affects human health and environment. For, it is not rare to meet with such instances where advertisements play foul with the potential buyers. Such type of advertisements misleads the buyers. It attempts to put them at confusion to gain more and more benefits.
All this is not to suggest that business of advertising is an unmitigated evil. Put to proper use, advertising can do enormous good to society if used properly. However, in the hands of those businessmen who are unethical and unscrupulous, the chances are that advertising will be more an instrument of individual and social harm than an agent of human welfare.