Advertising SACHI SHIMADA

   

     Advertising is not a new tool to promote and sell products. In Ancient Greece and also in the Middle Age, people used wood instead of paper to advertise their products. After that age, printer was invented and it made advertising more popular. Later, TV and radio was invented and it affected how they advertised. Also, Internet and e-mail are common ways to advertise these days. Before producing an advertisement, advertising creators need to understand the detail of the products and then research the customer about the trend of buying products and how to deal with it. After that, they develop ideas and decide the pictures and songs to use in the ad. Some people think advertising is really important for our lives. However, others argue that advertising have bad influences. Especially for children so many countries have laws to protect them from deceptive advertising.

      I can understand that advertising gives us many important information but I think advertising have some bad influences. I have three reasons. One is people might misunderstand that only advertised products are good. For example, I use unpopular shampoo because I think this is good for my hair even I have never seen this product advertised on TV. However, some of my friends told me that it is not reliable because they have never seen it on TV. Even if they have never tried products, some people decide only advertised products are good. Second, it could bring bad effects for parents who have little children. Many toy’s advertising show on TV during cartoons for children and once the children see the advertising, they beg their parents to buy it. Sometimes parents spend unnecessarily. Finally, we need to pay extra cost for companies advertising costs. For example, in Japan we could see many advertising of universities on the bus or train. It is a good way to get new students but it means that university’s students or parents paid money for it. Because of these three reasons, I do think that too much advertising is not good.

     Advertising especially food should be controlled and regulated by laws. Now, In the U.S, there are laws that food-advertising agencies should use real food product when producing their advertisement. In other words, they do not have to use real food products for items that they do not sell. So they can use glue, coloring agent, and kitchen paper to make products look good and appealing. The problem when we see the advertising and go to the store to buy it, we could get completely disappointed. For example, MacDonald shows us great advertising such as juicy and thick beef, fresh vegetables, and fluffy and perfect bun. However, we order that appealing hamburger which we saw on the TV commercial, and get a limp and tiny hamburger that is not appealing because they use many tools to make it look good in the ad. Therefore, we need to make new regulation that all the food shown in advertisements, use real food and not allow the use of glue or coloring.(508 words)