Advertising

The reading for this week was a rather interesting and informative one. In this blog i will focus on responding directly to the positive aspects of advertising that are presented to us by John E. Calfee. One of the examples used by the author was that cereal boxes become a useful source of information with advertising. The whole concept of fiber and how it prevents cancer pushed on this new ideal to be put on all healthy cereals as their hook to attract customers. As good as this may sound, because it is good that people start thinking about the effects of their food from this type of advertising, it also means that advertising is pushing forth the ideal of using scare tactics to sell products. Words like cancer are automative attention grabbers in the wrong way and advertising is encouraging people to continue living in fear. As good is the fact that people become a tiny bit more aware, because we can't know for sure how well the cereal boxes alone affected the awareness in cancer and a healthy boy, it means that as a society we only can affect people by making them scared of something. As an ideal if advertising wants to be useful in society it needs to use a level headed approach to getting customers rather then playing on the fact that we are all going to get cancer and this is what can stop the inevitable. Another think that really caught my attention is the compassion that the author felt for advertisers and the belief that they don't lie. "Sellers are less likely to stretch the truth, whether it involves prices or subtleties about safety and performance," this quote is in response to how advertisers are in constant competition and with that they play fairly and improve on informing us. The problem with this belief is that ads lie to us and they get away with it with tiny little subtext on the bottom of the screen. Their is no way to make advertisers tell the truth as they can stretch in and legal be allowed to do so. In the end ads to give us information ads are a potential tool to help us but in a competitive world they are used to sell their product with ethical or unethical means.