A discussion of the history, influence and power of advertising.
This paper examines how advertising has grown to become one of the most prominent markets as well as one of the most important resources in our economy and how marketers can sell everything from automobiles, to make-up kits, to zebra-striped bed sets with advertising to offer their specific goods and services to the public. It looks at how competition has since risen from the importance of advertising and persuasion has become an extremely important technique in this growing industry. The media has great influence over how the society thinks, acts, the clothes they wear, and so on but only if the audiences are actually reached. Only then will persuasion take its course and sell the product, creating needs for other products, which create needs for other products. It’s a vicious cycle that continues to revolve in our society, and it always will as long as there is a product to sell.
In relation to the way men and women are pictured, advertising companies try to reach men and women in different ways. Men are encouraged to be seen as masculine and superior, and are offered the basic appeal that certain products can help them achieve this identity. Women are pushed to be the beautiful housewives every man wants who use the right styling and make-up products, along with the sweetest smelling cleaning fluids. Women are offered products to better themselves in the way society begs to see them, rather than in the way they would like to be seen. These two worlds collide though, because the images we see in the media have so often become the image we want to have for ourselves.