Iceman1190's Blog

Advertising. Does it Really Influence? | October 22, 2009

In everything we look at today, we see slogans and catch phrases and pictures of all of the products made today. On television we see advertisements. On the radio we see advertisements. On the internet we see advertisements. On cars windshields we see advertisements. On billboards we see advertisements. And in video games we see advertisements. Advertisements are all around us. But do advertisements really influence us to buy certain products?

Upon looking at the T.V., I see ads on the sides of it. HDTV, HDMI and others because they want you to know that they are part of the T.V. I have a Vizio television and I see Vizio ads all the time with watching my favorite shows. Take me as a case study for this argument. I say that advertising doesn’t affect me, but that’s not the case. I tend to watch many “young adult” television shows. On those shows, they advertise things young adults would buy. Things like axe, video games, and other man products. These commercials do influence me because if anyone looked at the products I use, it’s all the same brand, Axe.

Movies are also a big factor for advertisers. They feel that if someone’s idol is wearing or using a certain product, then that person will want it as well. In the Matrix there were Cadillacs; in Tranformers there were Cheverolets but mainly GM cars. In Edward Epstien’s piece “Dumb Money”, he explains how much money advertisers put into movies and how the new moguls of Hollywood use this to their advantage. They know that the products movie-stars wear the regular people will want.

In this picture Tropic Thunder is being advertised in a video game. Rainbow Six Vegas is a multiplayer game where the developers put ads in the game to make the gameplay more realistic and to make money. The people who put the Tropic Thunder ad in the game put it there because they knew an big amount of people would see it, consciously not realize it because they’re focused on the game, but sub-consciously see it and want to view the movie.

Advertising is now one of the largest industries in the world. They have an enormous amount of influence because they put advertisements anywhere its possible to influence people. We unknowingly see advertisements in everything we view. From the articles we read in class and the one I showed, advertising goes undetected until someone is buying something that they saw on a billboard or on the television or internet.