advertising industry issues

Advertising is a creative means of reaching out to consumers. Promoting a product is important for a business because it allows them to sell new goods to the market because customers want to purchase items for which they are acquainted. Businesses use advertisements to retain loyal consumers and enable them to continue purchasing the product. Marketing allows a company to learn from its rivals. Often businesses get involved in introducing their products to brand transfer. Where a product loses a customer to another business, an organization may use brand swapping to reclaim the customer. Customers benefit from product marketing because they have a wide variety of options from which to select. Buyers also get information about the goods they are purchasing before they get to buy them.

Advertisement enables young people to learn about sexual matters in the society. Most parents do not have time to discuss sex challenges issues with the youth. Young people also get to learn about other problems of family planning, child labor, use of condoms. Viewers of the advertisements get to enjoy the adverts because the commercials are in such a way that they capture people’s attention (Farooque 192). Some of the messages advertising agencies use are humorous and hence attractive. Advertisements are critical because they help the people to know there are businesses around. Most business people use sexual content to advertise their products however I think the advertising agencies should reconsider using sexual content because it negatively affects all people in the society.

The promotional agencies use advertisement to mislead people on the choices of goods they ought to buy. One of the current issues that affect people is the use of sexual content to win shoppers (Farooque 203). Erving Goff man says that when promoters use couples to market a particular good, they send different messages of dominance and power. Goff man says that adverts that are sexual make more sales than those that are not sexual. Advertisers like victoria’s secret, Calvin Klein, and Pepsi use provocative images of well-defined women and muscular men with the aim of capturing the attention of the viewers (Mellinger 206). Studies conducted in the year 2003 shows that advertisements using sex rose from 15% to 27% and 48% of men liked the original posters. On the other hand, 8% of women did not like sex advertisements. Another study in Korea in 2016 showed that 94.5% of high school kids knew promotional clips that were sex driven. In the same survey in Korea, 3.4% of the adults thought the original advertisements had a negative influence on the community and thought the commercials were too many.

Different people have different opinions about using sex to promote a product. Some studies have shown that the use of sex to sell products has proved to be successful. Some firms employ people according to their physical attractiveness and such kind of enterprises aims at attracting the younger generation into buying their products (Mellinger 204). The hotels mostly prefer to use material attractiveness to attract customers. Mikulak a researcher in the year 2013 made an observation sexual, and erotic imagery draws men to buy the product. Most of the organizations that use the advertisements that use sex to play on the emotions of men to lure them to purchase the products. The words agencies use have an emotive meaning which masks the cognitive sense. Some of the promotional products that use this kind of fallacy include the deodorants, perfumes, and aftershave products.

On the other hand, some researchers have concluded that using sexual content to appeal to the buyers has the negative impact on customers. Brad Bushman says that sex in television has become overrated and products that use sex to market themselves only get buyers when the product is related to sex. If the advertisers do not use merchandise that is not related to sex and they advertise using a film that is sexually connected, they will not have many consumers. Also, women have developed a negative attitude towards advertisements with sexual content (Wells 88). Women have been found to despise the commercials that promote cheap products that have sexual content. Therefore some people have developed the mentality that women love men because of their material wealth while men like women because of fertility and sex (Rossiter 63). The kind of attitude that women are sex objects has led to some men going for casual sex. Some studies have it that there is a general sexual numbing of women over the use of the sexual stimuli in advertising.

Advertisers are very keen on using celebrities and people who are well known to sell their products. The use of people who are celebrities to sell products is the fallacy of appeal to authority. Young girls in the society look up to some people who inspire them (Mellinger 201). When people prefer the products, the celebrities use instead of using other products which might suit them better. The challenge of this misconception is that you can never honestly know whether the stars use the products in the real sense or they are just promoting them (Arstan 30). In some cases, choices of the products to use are personal preferences. At times the celebrities may be using the product however they may not be using the product at all. Therefore folks should not always buy a product because their stars are using the goods.

I think advertising is a very crucial exercise in the business world. People can know the products in the market compare them and know more about them. However, the issue of the use of sexual content to influence a buyer to buy goods is not pleasant because it has led to sex being made to look casual. Sex is very sacred and essential and through sex there is life. Many young people have become young parents because of ignorance. Advertisements that advocate for casual sex are supposed to be banned by the government; it should indulge in giving heavy taxes on the enterprises that use sex stimulation material to the public. One of the most challenges that the teenagers face is the fact that they are the most consumers of television content (Farooque 208). Parents in this era are busy looking for income to feed their families. Most of them take up to three jobs in a day to cater for the daily needs of a family. However, they leave the children and teenagers watching television all day long. Most teenagers at the age of 12 start experiencing body changes. They begin developing the sexual attraction towards their male or female counterparts. Because the parents are supposed to guide them, and they are not around, the teenagers learn from the television. They learn that casual sex is not bad and the girls discover that they are supposed to have ‘a perfect body’ and always look good (Rossiter 65). The girls, therefore, spend most of their time looking for clothes and makeup to have perfect looks like the people in the television sets. The idea of looking like the models in the TV shows has led to an increase in the number of ladies who are obese.

I would like to empower people against advertisement through making them aware that the films that portrayed in the televisions are meant to make the buyers spend money on buying them. I will let those who are against sex to become aware of the methods the advertisers use to make their product known (Farooque 201). I will let them know that the advertising industry has researched to get ways in which they can lure people to buy their goods. Some of the results are fallacies that do not have any truth in them. A fallacy is a statement that appears to be true, but it is not true. Most of the advertisers suppress evidence to make customers want to buy from them. They only tell us about the right part of the product and avoid the darker part of the product (Wells 82). Some of the companies that use sex content to advertise their merchandise use this fallacy to influence buyers. An example is the alcohol industry that does not tell folks the side effects of using alcohol. Therefore people get the perception that taking drinks is not harmful. The other product that mostly uses the idea of suppressing evidence is cigarettes. Smoking is very detrimental to the lungs; it discolors teeth and makes the fingers to turn color to brown (Mellinger 204). Unfortunately, the business people just want to make profits. People should understand that every product has good and bad effects depending on how they use it. I will teach people to be able to analyze if the adverse effects of the good are worth before making any decisions to buy.

I will teach people that some of the ads in the television use fallacious reasoning humorously to impress folks. Some of the statements in the advertisements people should not take them seriously. The primary challenge is that the viewers make the comments to be the gospel truth because the human minds tend to accept things that are repeated many times as truth. People need to ask questions about some of the stuff they believe if they are right (Arstan 24). I will also inform people about the fallacy of slogans. Through research that anything that people repeat several times becomes part of human belief system, people need to be cautious about the kind of things they listen every day.

Most of the adverts play on folk’s weaknesses, fear and emotions. An example is the toothpaste ads where the advertisers may include information about the toothpaste that is not true. The toothpaste may not be better than toothpaste in the adverts but because of the information provided about the toothpaste one might prefer it to the other varieties of toothpaste (Farooque 193). The problem is that most of the time we might not have that prove that they are better than the other brands. We just believe that whatever is said by the advertisers is true.

People should also know that media uses some sneaky photos and language to promote goods. Using the related terms makes the statements vague is one of the ways agencies make the products sale (Rossiter 57). Most of the companies will say that their merchandise is the best. The word best means in comparison to another, it does not necessarily mean it’s the last option for customers (Mellinger 205). Advertisers are fond of using photos and films that look awesome which one may not find the products looking as good as they appear in the movie. The reason why some products may not be as good as they appear in the advertisements is that the agencies use very powerful cameras to take the movie. Therefore people should be cautious when considering buying stuff that they saw in adverts.

The government is compelling in a country. To campaign against the advertisers, I will request the legislature through the right channel to pass laws against advertisements that stimulate sexual desires (Mellinger 1996). The media should sign contracts with the government on the measures to take if the people in media will not comply with the issue of sexual content. Individuals should pay hefty penalties if they do not follow the right procedure. Ladies are most affected people by the adverts that contain sexual content. They lose their self-esteem and feel like they are sex objects. Therefore leaders should create an environment where girls think they are valued and respected by the community.

I will volunteer in groups that are against the use of sex to sell their stuff. Some of these groups form strategies to counter the use of sex to do promotions. Through joining and encouraging other members of the society to participate, we will have more power to tell the public about the adverse effects of sexual content in advertisements. Most of the stakeholders in the media industry are advertisers (Farooque 203). Without advertisers, the media houses are not able to carry out the daily activities. Advertisers are the principal target because are the people that fund the advertisements (Wells 79). People need to have discussions with them to discourage them from using sexual content to sell their products. To be able to speak to them effectively a group effort is better than individuals.

Some organizations have been formed to get ways in which to reduce sex content in advertisements. I will join those teams and use its resources to reach to masses of people. Through educating people on how to avoid getting into the trap, they will change their perspective and advertisers will have no choice but to prevent the sexual content in adverts (Mellinger 200). The organizations should educate the girls on how to improve their self-image. Social media is the best avenue to use to speak against sexual content in media. Most people, especially the youth, are glued to social media. Social media is also not as involving as the groups and the organizations; this means that I will have the information without many resources. Comic books are effective in spreading the message since most young people love comic books. I will also watch documentaries that deal with the issues of use of sex for advertisements.

Advertising impacts me positively and negatively. Advertising enables me to know information about various products. It helps me to be able to compare the goods in the market and thereby make the best decision on which ones are best for me. However, it has influenced me on the type of products I go to purchase. Most of the time I find myself buying things because someone I look up to has them, for example, the Nike shoes. At times I choose to purchase household materials based on the fact that I saw them in the ads. Some drinks I take including coca cola I use them because of some advertisements on the television. It is quite challenging to avoid the temptation of using the advertised material as compared to the Material that I have not seen in the adverts.

Some of the ways the society should use to deal with the issue of sexual content in the advertisements are to have information about how media has developed ways to influence the public to be able to buy their products. Publications can be made to look appealing without the use of sexual content. The effects of sexual stimulation brought up by ads are fatal. The business may grow and have tremendous profits but what will happen to the society? It is not possible to do away with the promotional messages because they benefit the buyers and sellers, but we can minimize the sexual content in the films. Through reducing the content, young children will not get the wrong meaning of sex, and the people will make decisions on products based on the right information.

Works cited

Arslan, Muhammad. “Effect of Ethical Issues on Advertising Effectiveness: A study of Pakistan.” European Journal of Business and Management 7.10 (2015): 21-31.

Farooque, Asma. “A Study of Ethical Issues in Advertising in India, Its impact on Youth: The Need of A Regulatory Framework.” (2014).

Mellinger, Gwyneth. “344-01 Issues in Advertising.” (2014).

Rossiter, Joseph. A Meta-Analysis of the Ethical and Regulatory Issues Surrounding Advertising to Children. Diss. Cardiff Metropolitan University, 2015.

Wells, William D. Measuring advertising effectiveness. Psychology Press, 2014.