Advertisements’ influence and how to avoid it

Today it is virtually impossible to avoid advertisements, while they are everywhere

around us. We practically cannot imagine a day when we are not exposed to at least one form of
an advertisement. They can be seen in the streets on the buses and buildings, or in the media.
Although we are constantly exposed to advertisements it seems as if we are not aware of their
major influence on our lives. At first, it may seem unimportant, but isn’t it scary to think that
young generations grew up being exposed to advertisements. There are many ways
advertisements serve to influence us, the question is whether we can fight their influence and
how.

Since adds are unavoidable, we are left with no choice but to accept them and learn to
live with them. For we live in the age of consumerism, it is quite understandable what the adds
serve for. They are made purposefully, so as to make us spend our money on certain products.
There is not a single add out there that is not created to serve a certain purpose, i.e. to try and
persuade us to act in a certain way – to do something or to buy something. In order to
successfully achieve this purpose, the add must cause certain emotional effects on the target
audience and it must leave an impression on them.

I would, at this point, say that even those adds that seem banal are certainly not made that
way without a reason. For example, how many times did it happen that you find yourself
repeating in your head some seemingly naïve commercial song over and over again? That
particular catchy tune may seem rather stupid, but it served its purpose and got into your head.
Next time when you see a product it will trigger that catchy tune in your head, which will further
lead to the releasing of endorphin, and thus increase the chance of you buying a product
because you feel happy and satisfied at that moment. There is no secret to the way adds
function, while it is a simple chain reaction.

Now that we understand the ways adds function, as well as their purpose, there is a
chance to reduce their influence on us. And how do we do that? After the first step, which is
becoming aware of their purpose, we can proceed to the next step, which is analyzing them. By
analyzing the adds we come into contact with every day, there is a possibility that they will not
manipulate us as much as they are intended to.

In order to provide several examples, I turned on the TV and tried to analyze several
random commercials. The first example is a commercial for a mobile operator. The commercial
shows several scenes in which a guy is playing basketball, a man is jogging, a child is jumping
on the bed and two young girls are hanging out and the voice in the background says: “How do
you know who is the best? Well, it’s best if you ask people who have used different providers.
According to the research of 7000 people in Serbia, Telenor is the best”. So, what are they
aiming at here? They give us statistics, which seem very persuasive, and they let us see all these
scenes that trigger feelings of freedom, happiness, security. Never mind that we are not aware of
any further details about the alleged research or that mobile operators are generally not giving
much freedom, but they give contracts.

Another example is a commercial for a certain sweet. It is an animated commercial with

animals as its main characters. It is obvious that the target audience, in this case, are the children.
So, this opens another question which concerns the impact the commercials have on children.
They are exposed to the commercials, but may not be able to understand their aims, thus left
susceptible to any kind of manipulation.

I found another contradictory example in a recent McDonalds advertising campaign on

Instagram, which includes numerous photographs of young students, future athletes and doctors,
who are employees in this junk food restaurant. This campaign really made me wonder. Are
they really expect us to link health to junk food, or is it some kind of a reversed psychology?

In conclusion, the harsh true is that advertisements are omnipresent and unavoidable.
Nevertheless, if you feel endangered by their influence, there is a slight possibility of fighting
against them, and that is by raising your awareness of the ways they can serve to manipulate and
analyzing them.