Advertising in Our Lives

Advertising is almost everywhere. There are advertisements on the radio, the TV, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and online. Whether people are aware of it or not, advertising affects their daily lives. The things being advertised sell different ideals that companies want consumers to buy into.

For instance, skin care products intended for women sell an ideal type of beauty. They prescribe an ideal feminine. For a woman to be beautiful, she has to adopt a certain skin care regimen that promises to make her skin fairer, smoother, and blemish-free. Most skin care product advertisements promise that once a woman achieves beautiful skin, she will become more confident and desirable. With this confidence, she will become anyone she wants to be.

Similarly, products that promote machismo help shape men’s concept of an ideal masculine. For instance, sports apparel companies not only attempt to attract men to buy their products. They also prescribe a certain body type that adheres to the concept of an ideal masculine through the use of male models who have well-chiseled abs and well-toned arms, to name a few.

Advertising also helps shape people’s perceptions about certain concepts. Generally, companies want people to know that if they buy into the ideals that are prescribed by a certain concept, they will become happy or successful. One concept that is often influenced by advertising is happiness. Most advertisements say that if people buy a certain product or experience, they will be happy. For example, advertisements imply that if people buy the latest smartphone, they not only buy a product but also an experience that will allow them to see the world through a single device.

Advertising can affect people differently, but its effects on their lives are more serious than they think. People form their individual identities around the different ideals that advertisements sell. As people form their identities, they indirectly shape the kind of society they live in starting from the roles that men and women take on to the things that people say will make them happy.

Knowing the workings of advertising inside out should not make people cynics. Opening their eyes to the effects of advertising in their lives does not mean shutting their eyes to advertisements. It only means that people should be more conscious of the ideals that they buy into. People should remember that being patrons of certain products help companies perpetuate certain standards that societies often unquestioningly adopt.