The Advertisement Indoctrination
The mind is a malleable thing to manipulate. Advertisers know this all too well as they orchestrate their symphony of images and language. The implications of ads, in its many forms, are powerful and far-reaching beyond basic comprehension. [THESIS] Ads ultimately have a negative impact on our lives because they are designed to unwarrantedly sway and influence our emotions and choices in a way that will affect our behavior to benefit the advertiser. [THESIS]
With our money as the main motivator in advertising, it is difficult for advertisers to be completely truthful about every aspect of their products. Oftentimes, advertisers will omit, exaggerate, and even make false claims to sell their products. But, it doesn’t stop there. Jean Kilbourne, author of “Buy This 24-Year-Old and Get All His Friends Absolutely Free,” talks about how many companies are hiring anthropologists and psychologists to look at consumer spending choices and behavior. Kilbourne continues to discuss the various tactics used by advertisers, which include focus groups and the monitoring of brain wave signals, to name a few. Clearly, all this effort from advertisers speaks volumes about the influence ads are having on our minds and wallets.
When it comes to selling products, many companies will stack-the-deck with faulty use of authority. As an excellent example, lets look at Dannon Activia yogurt. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who appears in many of the commercials, endorses the Activia products. One commercial opens with Jamie Lee Curtis sitting on a green sofa and holding up the front page of a newspaper. She reports that the bad news is that 87% of this country suffers from occasional digestive issues like irregularity. The camera pans out to give full view of her sitting very comfortably on the sofa. She then says that our busy lives sometimes forces us to eat the wrong things at the wrong time. The camera pans in close again. Jaime Lee reports the good news is that Activia yogurt can
With our money as the main motivator in advertising, it is difficult for advertisers to be completely truthful about every aspect of their products. Oftentimes, advertisers will omit, exaggerate, and even make false claims to sell their products. But, it doesn’t stop there. Jean Kilbourne, author of “Buy This 24-Year-Old and Get All His Friends Absolutely Free,” talks about how many companies are hiring anthropologists and psychologists to look at consumer spending choices and behavior. Kilbourne continues to discuss the various tactics used by advertisers, which include focus groups and the monitoring of brain wave signals, to name a few. Clearly, all this effort from advertisers speaks volumes about the influence ads are having on our minds and wallets.
When it comes to selling products, many companies will stack-the-deck with faulty use of authority. As an excellent example, lets look at Dannon Activia yogurt. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who appears in many of the commercials, endorses the Activia products. One commercial opens with Jamie Lee Curtis sitting on a green sofa and holding up the front page of a newspaper. She reports that the bad news is that 87% of this country suffers from occasional digestive issues like irregularity. The camera pans out to give full view of her sitting very comfortably on the sofa. She then says that our busy lives sometimes forces us to eat the wrong things at the wrong time. The camera pans in close again. Jaime Lee reports the good news is that Activia yogurt can
Cited: Kruse, Kevin. “Ad Pros and Cons.” Online discussion thread. 11 February 2011. Laulima Discussions. 25 February 2011. Medeiros, Linc-Alan. “Ad Pros and Cons.” Online discussion thread. 11 February 2011. Laulima Discussions. 25 February 2011. Kilbourne, Jean. “Buy This 24-Year-Old and Get All His Friends Absolutely Free.” Dialogues: An Argument Rhetoric and Reader. 6th Edition. Eds. Gary Goshgarian and Kathleen Krueger. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2009. 335-343. Print. Biderman, David. “11 Minutes of Action.” The Wall Street Journal 15 January 2010. 25 February 2011. Rounds, Audrey. “Dannon to Pay $21 Million to Settle Complaints over False Yogurt Ads.” Food and Drug Safety Legal Update. 16 December 2010. 25 February 2011.