October 3, 2013
Businesses spend a great deal of money “selling” success, sex, popularity, beauty, and happiness through advertising. Why? How can you defend yourself?
Businesses spend a great deal of money “selling” success, sex, popularity, beauty, and happiness through advertising. Why? How can you defend yourself?
Because they know that some people will believe them when they send messages through advertising claiming that buying their product/service will make you successful, popular, beautiful, happy, etc. You can defend yourself by learning to understand advertising and its negative affect and by limiting advertising’s affect on your life. Lastly, increasing your self-esteem can also help you defend yourself from advertising.
They know that we humans have desires in our lives(they are humans too, so that qualifies them to know). They know that success, sex, popularity, beauty, and happiness are all things people strongly desire. So in order to push a product they create advertisments that pull on your emotional strings to make you think phycologicaly that you NEED their product to bennefit you in one of those ways. Most likely they exagerate their product to make it sound better than what it really is to make more sales. We as consumers can defend ourselves by recognizing that these people have these advertisements around to manipulate us into buying so they can turn a profit. It is best to put yourself in situations that have lower amounts of advertising; like going out into the real world rather than sitting around and watching television(tons of advertising on there!). Also when you do see an advertisement that has your interest peaked, look further. Critically examine the thing, look at reviews, think about how it will fit into the scheme of your life ,and the most important money saving tip of all in this- wait a month before deciding to go through with the purchase if you still care about it.
That was a great answer, Katherine. Let’s recap. Advertising is nothing more than a legal lie. Marketing campaigns are designed to place you (your thoughts) with a product or service that will make all your dreams come true.
That is an illusion you cannot afford to fall for. Just as Katherine stated, focus on reducing as much advertising as you can in your life (television is one of the worst culprits) and focus your efforts on improving your self-esteem as you improve upon your self image. Focus on “fixing” yourself on the inside, not the outside. Ultimately, you will be the winner in this crazy thing we call LIFE.
Great commentary, Alex. You made many fine points. Well done!