Advertising Persuasive Paper

The reality of advertising is right under our noses and in front of our eyes. Wherever we are or whatever we are doing, the fact is we are likely to be surrounded and influenced by advertisements.

Shakespeare advertised his plays, of course, but not in the commercial sense we know today. For more than a hundred years, though, commercial advertisements for products and services have been vying for the attention of the consumer. Those businesses found that the bigger and bolder the claims they made, the more people bought their products and chose them over the competition.

The fiercely competitive businesses of advertising and marketing were born. Today those businesses alone are worth billions and even trillions of dollars. They infiltrate and influence every purchase we make and many we do not even intend to from our early ages through to our retirement homes and even our burial plots. We are literally bombarded with advertising for products that we do not even need from the moment we are born. Is this really a necessary and healthy part of our free economy, or is it an infringement of our freedom? Is advertising really anything more than a cynical manipulation of our wants and needs? You have to be clever and determined to avoid being used by the marketers but you can resist their lures.

Like them or loathe them or merely indifferent, advertisements are everywhere. They dominate our lives, from the TV, radio and internet, through to the billboards that seem to be everywhere. They sponsor and infiltrate the sports we watch. Even the clothes we wear are covered with advertising material, advertisements and logos for products and companies. Should you want to watch a film, you'll sit through twenty minutes of advertising before it even starts. You'll also be watching the film and its stellar cast place product after product in front of your eyes. You'll be subject to product merchandising, for clothing, for toys and lately for the growing market of