Advertising and How It Effects Addicts

Advertising and How it Effects Addicts As long as advertising is legal, people will continue to be addicted to alcohol and cigarettes. Both products are glamorized by the advertising they receive, and both products target people at an early age to secure their economic status. An essay by Jean Kilbourne called “Addiction as a Relationship,” illustrates how advertisement is used to lure people into using cigarette products, or alcoholic beverages to enhance their relationships, stimulate their friendships, and fill the gap of having no romantic relationship what so ever. There is also a video called “Deadly Persuasion,” by the Media Education Foundation. This video offers information about how the media targets people, by enticing them to use tobacco and alcoholic beverages, while offering statistical data to support these claims. In the essay Kilbourne shows a passionate view towards the Medias tactics used to lure the alcoholic to drink. Various examples are given to illustrate to the reader how the advertisements are used to make the addict feel that drinking the beverage is like a relationship that they are in. The essay goes on to show more examples of how cigarette ads do the same thing to some extent. The cigarette ads seemed to focus more on friendship where the alcohol adds focus on intimate relationships. The author relates their personal experience with alcoholism to these adds, and goes on describe how they, “loved the way alcohol made me feel, the coziness and warmth, the lifting of care.”(pg. 559) The writer describes the ads as reminding them of having these feelings. While it does not offer the firsthand account of addiction, the video by the Media Education Foundation seemed to integrate ad examples and statistical data together to create a presentation that was very well rounded. The video explained how advertisers try to lure in young people, and explained how people under the age of 15 who start drinking are 80% more likely

References: Kilbourne, J., Mauk, J. (2010). Adiction as a Relationship The Composition of Everyday Life a Guide to Writing, 14, 558-565. Mason, OH: Cengage Deadly Persuasion: The Advertising of Alcohol and Tabaco . (n.d.). Retrieved November 7, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qFENyemgk8