People are constantly bombarded by advertising. It’s hard to ignore all this advertising, and it can be really annoying! How does advertising affect us? We’re glad you asked! This infographic breaks down the positive and negative effects of advertising on people, as well as how advertisers influence your behavior. The information in this graphic is based on scientific research studies conducted over many years. So whether you like ads or not, at least now you know what they do to you (and why). Enjoy!
What is advertising?
Advertising is the way of making people know more about your product. It is an attempt to get people buy or even just use what you are selling. A business needs to advertise their products in order for people to become aware of them, and also know how it can benefit them.
These days, there are many types of advertisement, depending on how they are used.
A very common form is the television advertisement. These ads are shown in between shows and can range from about 5 to 30 minutes. Also, there is also magazine and newspaper advertisements. These ads usually only take up one page or less, but cost a lot of money because of their size and popularity among consumers.
There is also online advertisement such as banners and commercials on YouTube, which people see while using the website. And finally there are outdoor ads like billboards and posters. These can be found in most cities around the world, and they typically contain bright colors to draw more attention to them.
How does it work?
Advertising is frequently done by a company that wants to sell their products. For example, let’s say there are two companies that are trying to compete with each other for the same product, then whoever advertises better will be able to sell more. To do this, they typically advertise online on websites like Facebook or Instagram without people really realizing they are seeing an advertisement. They will put the ad in between posts so it is very easy to get lost among other things. Another way they advertise their product is by putting ads on YouTube, again trying to get the attention of people while they’re watching videos.
These advertisements are not always obvious like television commercials, some can be targeted towards specific groups of people and not even appear like they are advertising anything at all. For example, if you were to look at a website called Buzzfeed, it doesn’t seem like there is anything on the site that has to do with selling products until you find out that eighty percent of the content on this site is made by advertisers who pay for their ads to be on the site.
Why do we believe advertising messages
People tend to believe what they see, so if there is an ad on the television saying that a product can do something amazingly wonderful for you, people will usually believe it. The purpose of advertising is to create sales and convince as many people as possible to buy their product or at least use it. This happens because we want to fit in and be like other people. If we see that friends and celebrities use a certain product then we might want to try it out as well, even if we don’t really need the product for any reason.
It’s much easier to believe advertising messages because people are influenced by what they see around them. If you are surrounded by ads for certain products, then you’ll probably end up thinking about buying it, even if you don’t really need that product at all. Also, when it comes to fashion or beauty products, women want to look good, and the ads often show beautiful models wearing very expensive clothes and accessories. For this reason, women will usually buy these products even if they don’t really need them for any reason.
The effects of advertising on society
Negative effects of
Advertising that it can sometimes create false pretenses for the product being sold. For example, an ad might show someone driving a car which is worth more than most people’s houses while solving crimes and catching criminals in just seconds. This makes people believe that they too can have this car if they purchase it. This means that crime rates rise because people believe they can buy anything they want, even if it is very expensive.
Another negative effect of advertising is that it regularly tries to sell products through indirect messages instead of just telling people what the product does. If you see an ad on Facebook or Instagram, there are frequently no words, which means that you have to read between the lines and find out what the ad is actually trying to show you. This can sometimes cause people to go overboard with their purchases of that specific product, which causes overspending.
Positive effects
Positive effects of advertising are that it helps companies be able to get new products on the market quickly because they need to compete with other businesses for customers. It also lets them get feedback from the people that have already purchased the product and see if there’s anything they didn’t like about it or something that can be improved on. They also need advertising to promote their products with the media including magazines, websites, newspapers, television and radio stations. This keeps businesses in business because without them most of us would not have a job.
Positively lets companies get their products out there quickly, get feedback from customers, and keeps businesses in business so other people can have jobs. It is helpful to find out what type of claim they’re making about their product and do research before buying anything.
How can you protect yourself from being swayed by advertisements
When looking at an advertisement it is helpful to see what type of claim they are making about their product, if it sounds too good to be true then chances are the product probably isn’t that great. Also, simply doing your research and know what you require and want before thinking about purchasing anything because you will usually find a better deal on Amazon or Walmart than you will at your local mall.
You can protect yourself from being swayed by advertisements:
- Do research to find out if the product actually works before you buy it.
- See what outside sources are saying about the product, including reviews on websites like Amazon.com
- Look at the return policy of the store, especially if it’s online, this way you can try out a product and send it back if you don’t like it
- Watch out for false advertising, if they’re using indirect claims to try to sell the product, then this will typically mean that you don’t really know what it does.
- Look at the ingredients and do some googling to find out if those ingredients will harm your body or health in general. This is especially important in the case of beauty and fashion products because they often contain a lot of chemicals in them that can cause serious health problems.
- Do research to find out if the product actually works before you buy it, read reviews from outside sources to get unbiased information about the product, look at the return policy of the store to get a feel for the company and what they’re like, watch out for false advertising to protect yourself from being swayed by indirect claims, look at the ingredients in beauty and fashion products because they contain a lot of chemicals that can be harmful.
Strategies to avoid the influence of ads
- Don’t watch too much television because that is what most advertisements us for
- Don’t look at social media during the day because that’s mostly where companies promote their products and services on.
- Don’t shop while you’re tired, since this will cause you to make bad decisions with your money and purchase things you don’t need.
- Don’t buy things impulsively because this will cause you to waste your money and regret it later on when you realize that the product is either of poor quality, doesn’t work as well as it claims, or don’t think about why you wanted the product in the first place.
- Avoid watching too much television, try staying off social media during the day, don’t shop when you’re tired since this will cause you to make bad decisions with your money, avoid impulsively buying things or regretting it later on.
- Another way to avoid the influence of ads is by creating a budget ahead of time and sticking to it. This can be especially helpful for things like shopping at the mall because you won’t be able to purchase anything if you don’t have enough money already saved up, unless there is an emergency situation where you absolutely need something.
In the end, we have to remember that advertising is a business. It doesn’t care about you or your family, and it has no vested interest in anything other than making money for its owners. The sooner we can all accept this reality, the better off we’ll be as consumers of these products.
People are starting to catch on to how ads affect them subconsciously. If everyone was more aware of what they were getting themselves into when buying something from an ad, companies might not get away with as much as they do now.
In order to keep up with their competitors who may also use persuasive techniques like advertisements, businesses need to provide quality products at competitive prices without deceptive practices such as false claims or misleading representations because those will eventually back.
