What would happen if starting tomorrow the advertisement industry stops producing ads? Imagine yourself in a supermarket without knowing what product is of good quality. What would happen to the business world if advertising is taken out? What would happen to the media world if publicity is taken out?
As I wake up in the morning, I brush my teeth with my Sensodyne toothpaste, I eat some exquisite Betty Crocker cake with a tasty Starbucks cappuccino, wear my school uniform, tie my Nike shoes and off to school. As the Lexus car rides to school, one by one all the signs and notices of the Starbucks, Nike and Sensodyne toothpaste pass before my eyes. One day, suddenly, a terrible thought came into my mind: what if all these advertisements are not placed there anymore, what would happen?
Imagine yourself in a world where advertisement has disappeared. We would go to the supermarket to get some coffee, some toothpaste or some cake, but what kind of each would we get? Advertisements help us distinguish between the qualities of the products. This is what brands are supposed to be there for. This is what the role of advertisement is all about. We, as human beings, have different needs and desires and would like that business fulfills them. But none of us have the time and desire to go to the supermarket and inform ourselves there about the different types and qualities of the products we want. At least I do not know anybody who does it and do not believe that you do it also.
What I want to demonstrate here is that we do not have the time and, sometimes even the desire, to get all the information when we are at the store. We prefer to go informed at the supermarket, just pick the product we want, and use it. This is exactly what the advertisement industry helps us to do. The primary goal and intention of the advertisement is to inform the public about the product, or service, it is advertising. When we see the Starbucks or Nike advertisements, we do not just see some graphical presentation. Its scope is to inform us that Starbucks makes first quality café and cappuccinos so if we want to buy good cappuccino, we go for Starbucks. It is in our interest to do it. This is the same if we want to purchase good quality shoes. Nike is there for us.
There is no need to go to the supermarket and get informed there. You can go there informed, with precise intentions of what to buy because you have been informed by the advertisement industry about the quality of Starbucks and Nike, for example. And it is not that difficult to be informed.
Nowadays psychologists are discovering that even if we do not have the attention focused toward the advertisement still its message remains “within” ourselves. They have found that when we hear, or see, repeatedly an advertisement our subconscious classifies it. It is like we have that product stock in our minds and hearts. And every time that you need to have such product suddenly a brand name comes to your mind. It is the name of the brand that has been advertised. A brand that relates to the kind of product that you are requesting, that you are in need.
So, do not worry folks, as long as the advertisement industry is there you won’t have to spent additional time to be informed about what you need or what to buy. You will just have to make the “embarrassing” choice of which of the brands to buy. In our case, the Starbucks and Nike advertisements help us decide which coffee brand is the tastiest or which shoe is of high quality. They help us decide by informing us about the products they advertise. Without this informative action, it would be much more difficult to obtain the right product that you need. This is why the advertisement industry is there for us.
Rationale
In the opinion column above I tried to show that advertisements of different brands are something we encounter often, if not daily. By the examples I gave I wanted to demonstrate that advertisement of such brands helps peers like me to make decisions about products we desire. Products like Starbucks or Nike, for example. I think that this can be achieved by using an informative tone toward the target audience which is composed on young persons like me.
My purpose is to inform them and make them more attentive and conscious about the informative importance of advertisements in our society for the easing of their daily life. This is important for my audience, because we are in constant search of different products and services for our growing needs.
As is intended from the beginning of the opinion column, advertising is an integral part of our culture; it is an integral part of our everyday life. Can we imagine our life without advertisements about the products we use frequently.
Most of the people around me take all of this for granted. We do not stop and just for one moment think about it. We do not think about the importance of advertising. I have taken as examples two advertisements, those of the Sensodyne toothpaste and Nike shoes. These are only illustrative examples of advertisements of products that we use on a daily basis. But there can be many more examples. I have used these examples to recall our common experience of everyday. We encounter these products daily and the advertisement about them also. I have tried to draw the attention of my audience to the very fact that we see ads on a daily basis. Just think for this for a moment. And after that, think of the information we get even though we do not actively, consciously, attempt to get that information. As I write in the opinion column, when we get to a supermarket and we want to get some good quality shoes, or toothpaste, the brand names of different companies come to our head unconsciously. But these brand names have got in our minds through the advertisement industry and all the ads we see in our daily trip to school, for example.
In conclusion, I can say that our cultural system is based on the premise that information will give you more power. This said, advertisement has integrated in our culture. In fact, the core of my opinion column is that advertisement is a “tool” that helps us in making decisions in our daily life. This is what I tried to convince my audience of. My opinion is that by paying a little more attention to the products advertised we can serve better our needs and desires. Young people, especially adolescents would benefit in making the best decisions about the products and services offered today by companies. For example, I quote the Nike shoes in my opinion column. If you want to start jogging or are interested in sports then you need adequate products for sports. Nike is one company that offers such products. So by being attentive to its advertisements you can figure out which of its products best fits your needs.