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| Debatabase Junior Topic |
| Summary: Is having widespread advertising good for a society? |
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Author:Richard Penny ( Finland )
Richard is a former Baltic Debate Champion, finalist in a numerous British IV's, and broke as 25th best speaker at Worlds 2007. He is active in coaching university and high-school debating in Finland. |
Created: Saturday, December 08, 2007
Last Modified:
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Advertising has grown to be an industry worth many billions of dollars across the world. Almost all public space has some advertisements in sight and all forms of media, from newspapers to the internet, are also filled with adverts. Whilst this helps companies sell their produces, and helps consumers to learn what is on offer, many believe that this huge amount of advertising can be harmful. It may make people want too much, or things that they cannot have, or it might make them feel inadequate when they don't have something. Research shows that children can be particularly open to these kinds of risk. |
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| The levels of advertising are just too much these days. You cannot walk down the street, ride on a bus, watch television or read your email without seeing advertisements. People shouldn't have to have their lives attacked by a huge quantity of information they might not want. |
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No-one is forced to put advertising on their property - for many companies it is an important part of their income. Football teams would have much less money if they were not sponsored. And no-one is forced to look at advertising - you can turn the TV off between shows, or just flick past adverts in newspapers. If you don't want to see the adverts, then just ignore them. |
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| Advertising leads to many people being overwhelmed by the endless need to decide between competing demands on their attention – this is known as the tyranny of choice or choice overload. Recent research suggests that people are on average less happy than they were 30 years ago - despite being better off and having much more choice of things to spend their money on. The claims of adverts crowd in on people, raising expectations about a product and leading to inevitable disappointment after it is bought. Shoppers feel that a poor purchase is their fault for not choosing more wisely, and regret not choosing something else instead. Some people are so overwhelmed that they cannot choose at all. |
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Advertising has a positive role to play in modern society, helping us choose between competing goods. Many adverts are drawing our attention to products with new features, for example more powerful computers, telephones which are also cameras and music players, or foods with added vitamins. Other adverts try to compete on price, helping us seek out the cheapest or best value products. In most cases advertising does not make us go shopping – we would be planning to buy food, clothes, gifts and entertainment anyway. What advertising does is to help us make better decisions about how to spend our money, by giving us more information about the choices available. |
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| People cannot just choose to ignore advertising, because advertisers use many underhand methods to get their message across. Posters have attention grabbing words, or provocative pictures. Some adverts today are even being hidden in what seem like pieces or art or public information so people don't realise they are being marketed to. By targeting people’s unconscious thoughts adverts are a form of brainwashing that take away people's freedoms to make choices. |
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Adverts which use very sly methods like subliminal images (images which are shown so quickly the viewer doesn't consciously realise they saw them) are already banned. The other forms of advertising are just companies being creative. There is no difference from supermarkets being painted bright colours to make their food seem more appetising or even people wearing make-up to improve their image. People make unconscious judgements all the time, and we frequently try to influence these choices by the way we present ourselves. This isn't brainwashing, so neither is advertising. |
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| Many adverts do more than just advertising products. Some try to make people feel inferior if they don't have the product, or if they have something which the product would change. Perceptions of beauty and fashion in particular have been terribly distorted. Many young people have low-self esteem, and lead unhealthy lifestyles because they feel they should be thinner and more attractive like the models they see in adverts. This leads to serious problems like eating-disorders and self-harm. |
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The media and celebrity magazines do much more harm, by mocking unattractive or overweight people, and glorifying models who are often dangerously thin. Adverts never criticise people - that would be terrible for the companies behind them. Their aim is to understand and provide what people want, and so their adverts only ever reflect what people think. If people's perceptions are wrong, then it not the advertisers' job to put them right, but politicians, the media and schools. |
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| Advertising gives the impression, especially to children, that they can and should have everything they want. This makes people too interested in material things. People are becoming more selfish and obsessed with their possessions, and losing their values of patience, hard work, moderation and the importance of non-material things like family and friends. This harms their relationships and their personal development, which has serious effects for society as a whole. |
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Our society is build around the idea that companies produce things that people want, and this is what makes us prosperous. If consumers suddenly stopped wanting to buy so many products then what happens to the people whose job it is to make them? The economy will suffer terribly. Of course some people take materialism too far, but most people buy just what they need and then a little extra when they treat themselves. This is a much better situation than one in which people can only afford to buy the things they need - that would be a step backwards. |
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| Advertisers don't have the good of society in mind when they do their work - they only care about making profit. This means that they regularly advertise unhealthy or harmful things. Fast food adverts are a large part of the reason so many children are obese. The adverts just try to make children eat as much food as possible without any concern for the health costs. |
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Adverts which promote seriously unhealthy things are becoming very rare. Cigarette advertising is all but extinct, and alcohol adverts are being more restricted. With adverts such as fast food we see as well that companies are changing their message to promote healthier options. This is because it is bad for businesses to be viewed as harming children. Public pressure and successful regulation will always bring any advertising problems back under control. |
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| Advertising gives an unfair advantage to big businesses. Small companies might have much better products, but they cannot afford to advertise them as well and so people don't find out about them. This restricts the quality of products for consumers, and places a huge roadblock to the success of small businesses. |
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If there wasn't advertising then small businesses would have no chance at all to make their product well known. Adverts can actually level the playing field - if you have a good new product, and market it in a clever way then it doesn't matter how small your company is, you can still make consumers interested. The more you restrict the freedom of information, the more this helps the large companies who everyone already knows about. |
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| | This House would ban all advertising aimed at children
This House believes that advertising is harmful
That advertising is harmful and should be restricted
This House would ban the advertising of unhealthy goods
This House would not allow advertising in schools
This House would require customers to give consent before they are shown any advertising
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Author | Post |
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ScornedVixen
Member
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Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 01:07 pm |
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Advertisement is promoting "keeping up with the Joneses"mantra. Many of the adverts on the television have extremely small print on them that you can hardly read, so an item that is being promoted on the TV as a special offer isn't really.
Take Somerfield, they advertise their goods at a discount price, you go to their shops for that discount only to find you have to register for a store card, people who opt not to register for a storecard are missing out on those deals.
To register for that store card, means your spending habits will be recorded and passed onto a third party. By refusing I'm being penalised in a way that I can't have the discount just as those who are registered for the store card are.
Back to advertisement, many of those adverts are fakes, how many of you have had orgasmic experiences just by washing your hair with essense or something branded shampoo?
Advertisements are made to lure you into thinking your life is nothing unless you have state of the art mobiles, tv, stereo, Wii. Increasingly, the adverts are aimed at children as everyone knows 'pester power' wins at the end of the day, and parents don't like saying no/or disappoint their children.
Of course, i don't pay heed to those adverts as I know it is a full of crock. Impressionable people don't!
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Drewbuurt
Member
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Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 05:43 pm |
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| Advertisements are good for societies. Advertisements encourage home spending, and quite frankly, many worried people need the encouragement in these tough times. People are hiding their money under their mattresses and this stops the cash flow through the economy. Not to mention the fact that advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry. Despite these great advantages, I must admit that some advertisements go too far; more organizations like the AdCouncil need to set restrictions on advertisements.
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sadia
Member
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Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 09:07 am |
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I choose to speak against the motion.:cool:
In da words of bruce barton,''advertising is the very essence of democracy''.It is a biznz OF da people,BY da people and FOR da people.True,there are indeed thousands of anorexies and obese around us,but can we actually blame ads for this ?I certainly dun think so.
I would rather blame the people for their lack of self control n wrong eatin habits.
I've seen dis really popular ad jingle,of a soft drink which shouts out to da world''Yeh Dil Maange More''..[my heart longs for more],but now u see,da choice is in our hands.We being da aware and intelligent consumer must shout back ''Yeh Dil Maange [b]NO more''..[my heart longs for NO more][/b]
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