Max Wang (Mingyang)
English 100 D/C
Teddy Chocos
Apr 6, 2014
Assignment #8
The Negative Impact of Advertising
Now days, our life is filled up with advertisements. When you are watching a TV
show, waiting buses in the bus station or walking through streets, you will find that
you are surrounded by all kinds of advertisements. These advertisements have lots of
negative impacts on people by using devious advertise competition.
First of all, misrepresentation will exist in the advertising process for a better
profit. For example, the opposing political parties are always report differently about
one thing. Last year, the U.S government was shut down because of the conflict
between Democratic Party and the Republican Party. When the Democratic Party
talks about the shutdown, they said it is helps the debt limitation. But the Republican
Party focus more on the negative side of impact, they think it will damage the GOP.
The government will control some of the public media to guide people’s opinion and
get benefit from it. Maybe it is for election, or maybe for a new proposed law. It is
interesting to find that someone has the same point of view. In the book “American
Ways”, Maryanne Datesman writes about the historical development of producers in
the chapter: “The History of Abundance”. Datesman says that: “the internet and the 24
hour cable news networks have created a desire for instant reporting and explanation
of news events, sometimes leading to factual mistakes or the wrong interpretation of
what is happening (P107.22).” It shows the news can be superficial and even silly
sometimes, no matter in TV or the internet. The government is the only one part that
have power to control the information, right or wrong is not important but the benefit
and save face. This statement clarified the example above. It is to say that the
advertising or other things on the public media might be fake or partly true because
they need to consider the influence of these information. They will always choose
some part of a thing to report to get the most profit from it. Sometimes, authority may
not be credible.
Secondly, advertisement will give people unrealistic expectations to attract them
make more purchase on their products. As Datesman mentions that:“Perhaps mass
advertising has reached the point when most consumers simply ignore most of the
advertisings, and businesses have learned that they can reach consumers better by
appealing to their individual buying habits and other aspects of their lives (P104.12).”
Sellers create mass advertising contains unrealistic expectations to meet consumer’s
demand. These adverting make people feel like there is an easy way to a better life by
purchasing their products. Here is a good example of this kind of advertising: The
XXX company says that they have a new beverage product that can easily lose weight.
It will help you lose 20lbs in a week. They post a set of photos on the internet show
“customers” drink their product before and after. It seems that people who drink this
beverage become much slimmer and more beautiful than before. So this product
becomes so popular in the market. But actually, these products are just normal juice,
they won’t hurt your body but they also don’t help with your weight problem at all.
Doesn’t this case sound so familiar? Most advertising about weight control sounds has
magical effects, but they are all just stretching the fact or even worse. Don't believe in
rhetoric, or might be the beginning of fooled.
Last but not least, some advertisements will mislead the public. Almost everyone
knows, Diamond is a very luxury product and it is necessities for engagement and
wedding. But is diamond really that expensive? Or is it a tradition to use diamond as a
gift to your lover? The answer is No. On the contrary, diamonds are not that scarcity
at all so they should not be so expensive. This is a story about “the biggest market
scheme in the 21 century”. De Beers is the world largest diamond producer, their
diamond business started at hundreds years ago. They monopolized 90 percent of
diamonds market before 1950’s, they still have 40 percent diamond market now. De
Beers spend almost two hundred millions on advertising their company. “A diamond
is forever”, this is the most famous advertising of diamonds. It creates eighty billions
market sales for a year but the cost of these little stones are just less than ten billion.
Also, this advertising drastically changed the wedding cultural. For 1500 years,
Japanese have their own marriage tradition. However, Japanese government allowed
diamond import after 1952. Since then, send diamond as a marriage gift become a
new tradition in Japan and it becomes the second biggest market of engagement
diamond rings in the world. As Datesman said:“A second effect was that advertising
techniques were so successful that over time they began to be used to change
Americans’ attitudes, behavior, and beliefs.” This diamond scheme does not only
changed Americans’ attitude, behavior and beliefs, but also changed the worldwide
diamond industry”. What did De Beers do is a perfect prove of Datesman’s statement.
De Beers’ huge spent on advertising get them considerable profit, and their famous
slogan changed the world’s attitude to diamond. Diamond becomes an articles of
luxury and necessities from a normal stone. This diamond scheme does not only
changed Americans’ attitude, behavior and beliefs, but also changed the worldwide
diamond industry. So, let a lot of people knows, it is the beginning of marketing.
From all of the above, advertising has a great negative impact on people. It
misleads people’s opinion, it is full of lies and it might twist people’s value and belief.
These are the disadvantages for consumers, it also has bad influence on producer.
Advertising makes producers can not focus on the quality of their product, they will
pay more attention on how to sell their products even by using stretched or fake facts.
We can’t abundant all the advertising, but we can build ourselves with brighter eyes to
distinguish the truth and fake.