Advertising, also known as any paid form of non-personal
communication about an organization, product, service, or idea by an identified
sponsor in which gives information about a product, is something that is
portrayed almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week whether or not we are aware of
it. In the United States alone, over 263 billion dollars a year are spent
on advertising. After observing the amount of advertising done in a 24 hour
span, I came to the conclusion that I truly am not aware of the amount of
advertising that is placed in front of me on a daily basis.
At just 7:00 a.m. when I wake up to start my day and turn on the
music channels, there are advertisements on side of the screen. The type
of advertisement depends on what time of music station I am listening to. When
I turn on the country station, the advertisements that tend to come up are
promoting for the country singer such as their cologne and perfume. On
the radio for country, there are a lot of dealership advertisements for trucks.
When it comes to the hip-hop stations on television, the ads tend to
differ. They are more focused towards clothing and cosmetic products such
as crest white strips, Herbal Essance, and Lancôme products. When I get
on my computer before I go up to class, advertisements that pop up are things
such as Verizon Wireless (my cell phone company), and clothing products since I
do a lot of online shopping. On my way to class every day I see the same advertisements
for all of the restaurants up and down Main Street.
Around 12:00 p.m. on my way back from class I also see those same
advertisements on Main Street. When I get home from class and turn on the
television, I normally tend to turn on Lifetime Movie Network. After doing this
project, I realized that the advertisements for this channel are focused more
on middle-aged or older women. Between one and my next class at 3:00,
advertisements that were portrayed were Activia, Granola Thins, Prescriptions
Savings Card, Laser Spine Institute (for back pain), Toyotas, Anti-depressants
(Cymbalta), Exelon Patch (Alzheimer’s), Ourtime.com, Match.com, and
Puristics. All of these advertisements are types of ads that a young
woman at my age would not be interested in because most people at my age tend
to watch MTV instead of Lifetime.
After class, I took a trip to the Lehigh Valley Mall where on the way I saw so
many advertisements that if I would have tried to keep track by writing them
all down I would have caused a car accident. Everywhere you look there is
an old fashion billboard or the new electronic ones with multiple flashing
advertisements. Some that stuck out that I could remember were a Kutztown
billboard, a Penn State baseball billboard, Never Quit Smoking billboard,
T-Mobil, Verizon Wireless, DeSales University and jewelry billboards. At
nighttime when I get home and turn on MTV, the advertisements drastically
change for the age range. The advertisements are clearly directed more
towards adolescents. Some that showed were Snapple half and half,
Twix, Maybelline, 10 minute trainer workout, Head and Shoulders, Febreze, and
crest 3D white strips. There were also advertisements for Hershey Kisses,
goldfish grains, Arby’s and Scion.
After doing the observation of advertisements,
I found that the signaling that the distributers are trying to get across
differs from the different type of station you are listening to or
watching. Channels for younger people direct their messages more towards
the “new trends,” while channels directed towards older people focus more on
health care and old habits that most probably already follow. With all of this
clutter being put into our minds 24/7, 7 days a week, it turns out to be a
negative impact on the consumers. They feel
as though the products they see advertised in the media is something that they
need to have because if it works on television, chances are it’s going to work
for them. I feel as though most people look past how pervasive commercialism
is. Society believes that this stuff
being shown in the media is a “must have,” causing times to be even harder than
they are in today’s economy. Between
radio, television, billboards, magazines, the internet, and multiple other
types of media, it’s consistent involvement in our lives and has become intrusive. We can’t go anywhere without being bombarded
by some sort of sign saying “buy me!” in the long run, this is going to have a
negative impact on the consumer but a positive impact for the producer.
