Essay On The Omnipresence Of Advertising

In the modern world people are bombarded with advertisements. They can be found everywhere: television, social media platforms, billboards, clothing, magazines, and public transportation. Such advertisements have become a common medium in our daily lives. So much, that we tend to ignore the mere existence of them. The reason for this, is that most people believe that advertisements do not have an influence on them. When people encounter an advertisement, they believe that its sole purpose is to convey information about a company 's product. It is assumed that with the newly acquired information from the advertisements, we, the consumers, simply decide if we will or will not purchase the product. But this is in fact, not true. Little do most …show more content…
Advertisements have been in my life as long as I can remember. From commercials popping up when I watched cartoons, to catalogs being left at my doorstep and the ever-changing posters pasted on the sides of the buses I took to school. Due to which, I could not help but notice the omnipresence of advertisements. Naturally I started observing and thinking about the various advertisements I came across. I knew that it cost a lot for companies to both create and display these advertisements and always wondered if the expenses are even worth it. "This year, in the United States alone, companies will spend $140 billion on advertising" (Weltman 9). No one talks about them and people busy themselves with other activities when a advertisement or commercial comes up. Furthermore, a lot of things advertised are not exactly needed and many people, including myself, only by what they need and cannot afford to indulge on anything but necessities. So it is puzzling as to why companies insist on advertising. I am also someone who thinks that I have control over the choices I make and that advertisements do not have much influence on me. But with advertisements being so rampant it makes me wonder if that really is the …show more content…
It is a way to make people feel good about the product being introduced. Through advertising a product is made desirable, it builds up and attracts a bigger following of customers. But most importantly, it allows a company to compete and perhaps even beat competitors (Linton). All of these things are accomplished through advertising in many different ways and forms. Unlike what many people believe, advertisements are not meant to have an immediate effect of getting the audience up and out to buy the product being introduced. Instead advertising is a long term process, with accumulating effects. The effects of advertising are small in the present moment but over a long period of time these effects add up and eventually have a bigger impact than we notice. Which is why the effects of advertising largely go unnoticed by the public. It is a slow and gradual process that gets through to people without them even realizing (Sutherland and Sylvester