Advertising in the Media

Today, in the age of globalization, views and attitudes of people as well as authenticity of cultures are influenced by political strife, ethnic problems, quality of life, social status, marketing, and media. Recently, the influence of advertisements started to gain momentum. The initial intentions of advertisement implementation differ radically from the present ones. Moreover, the initial intentions, mostly based on informing, did not represent a threat which is seen nowadays in a radical influence on cultural values and symbols. The impact of advertising cannot be classified as purely negative or positive. Without a doubt, it is important to state the fact that due to the influence of advertising, cultural norms and values have greatly changed. Despite this fact, advertising is still widely used in all areas and becomes an integral part of human lives while altering the viewpoints and people’s mentality.

The role of advertising is one of the basic factors influencing a decision-making process of modern society.  Large companies use advertisements as a way to establish communication with consumers and to let a large number of people know about their products (Shah, 2012). This is the most widespread way of communicating with potential customers/consumers. One of the ways to make a certain brand popular is to make the product/service be irreplaceable. According to Shah (2012), this is one of the common approaches used for creating consumerism and, what is more important, for turning luxuries into necessities. Ordinary people face advertising everywhere: from TV at home to local clinics, roads, and transportation. Large corporations understand the potential of advertising, which can maximize their profits. The factual dependency of media companies on advertising is obvious as well as the reverse linkage between them.

Concerning the linkages, media is also closely connected to the so-called “branded entertainment” presented by music records, shows, radio etc. (Taylor, 2009). This type of branded entertainment is one of the ways to reach a potential customer and make him or her pay attention to it. Taylor (2009) states “The ever-growing role of advertising, which continues to indentify and capitalize on the trendy, sometimes even becoming the arbiter of trendy.” In other words, advertising does not only offer products or services, but also dictates the norms indicating the trendiest ones. Therefore, there is a variety of choice, but the trendiest one is highly valued by society and refers to another price category and sometimes even appears to be overcharged. In case of branded entertainment, it is important to state the fact that influence over the making of popular culture, perhaps, especially, music and American culture has become a general pattern of the modern world and society (Taylor, 2009). Therefore, advertising can be considered as a modern type of ritual or sanctity the world obeys to.

It is an obvious fact that each advertisement carries a certain message. The simplicity and accessibility of the message plays an integral role in the efficiency of advertisement. Therefore, its influence has gained momentum. With the development of international relations and openness of the market, the advertising strategies have greatly changed. Nowadays advertisements form the people’s impressions and manage to guide their behavior. In other words, “brand becomes a cultural symbol” (Hovland  & Wolburg, 2010). Moreover, it becomes a symbol not only for adults, but also for young minds which are easy targets and, therefore, target groups for skillful advertisers. According to Shah (2012), the younger minds are more malleable and impressionable and that is the reason why they are easily manipulated by images, videos with constant message everywhere. This is one of the ways how advertisements influence youngsters in terms of appearance issues. There is an advertised norm of appearance for men and women, which influences young generation in the worst way. The judgment of people changes under the yoke of imposed standards. Globalization even increases the role of media and advertising by means of artificially created culture of consumerism (Shah, 2012). Therefore, multinational companies and well-known corporations take an advantage of the openness of market and globalization itself in order to flourish.

As it was mentioned before, advertising has become a certain type of the everyday ritual for society. Therefore, it is an open question “how advertising has become an institution in society, how it constructs and maintains cultural values, and how it teaches citizens to become customers” (Hovland & Wolburg, 2010). Indeed, society is divided into groups and each group is nowadays labeled as “customers” because mostly every person has his/her own preferences in food, clothes, make-up, travel agencies, car brands etc. That is how advertising messages manage to shape and reinforce cultural values (Hovland &Wolburg, 2010). For instance, advertising can dictate the status according to the car brand an individual chooses. Moreover, it dictates gender roles and manages desires while buying power as well as capability of the individual. Hovland et al. (2010) suggest “Advertising as a part of culture and through symbolic means, presents a view of the world and a values system that are then reinforced repeatedly through a wide variety of media.” Advertising managed to find a thin thread that connects man’s ego, hungry for luxury as well as a man’s brain that seeks information. With the help of merging these two basic factors –their importance and significance are achieved.

Advertising cannot be seen only as a destructible influence on society. It is a complex issue and still requires development and improvement from sociological, psychological, and marketing point of view. However, it is a powerful tool which is used mostly for manipulation and reinforcing consumerism as well as cultural values and symbols produced by the advertisement itself. Nevertheless, society is not able to consider the nature of this phenomenon and defines it as informative, useful and beneficial element of our life.