Advertising has been a part of trade practices since the beginning of it. Brands such as Coca Cola, P&G, Unilever, etc have managed to sustain themselves for years. Apart from the trust in products by consumers, the marketing or rather the awareness and recall value induced through promotions (advertisement) has played a crucial part in their sustainability.
This shows how important advertising is for a brand. As for the customers, it gives them awareness, choice and entertainment as well to some extent. An advertisement aims to transform a particular product or service into a brand. To achieve this, advertisements are target in such a manner that could lead to influence the final decision of purchase.
As a mass marketing technique, advertisement focuses on divulging the beneficial information about the product to the consumer. It is argued that advertisement influences people in negative as well as positive manner. As for the positive part, it is very useful in educating and spreading awareness about welfare of customers as well as about the diseases and its prevention. The entertainment factor of an advertisement makes it easier for the people to grasp the message and remember it. It particularly influences the population to drive to an action. Be it a social awareness message or about the brand, people do start to think about it. As for the customers, they get to know about the options they have as well as the offer related to different products. Due to the awareness spread, the consumption of the product increases and so the demand for it ultimately affecting the economy.
Now, as for the negative side of the argument, it is said that advertisement influences the people and society by employing negative means such as reinforcing the emotional and gender quotients. Children are targeted particularly just for the sake of selling the product and earning profits. The over use of sexuality and glorifying the product and also false promises are employed in advertisement to influence the purchase decision of the customers. It is often argued that Advertisements play heavily on emotions just for the sake of selling products and avail the profits.
In today’s time, advertisement has moved from conventional methods to modern ones. With the growth of digital media, it has spread its wings towards reaching wider and precise target audience. Advertisement falls on both the side of morality, good as well as bad. Some reinforce the emotional and gender quotients and play with it to popularize the product. Some take up social issues and highlight them with brand connect while some simply keep the entertainment factor to make awareness about the product. From ancient to today’s time advertisement has influence the society in a positive as well as negative manner.