ADVERTISING MANIPULATES US INTO BUYING THINGS WE DON'T NEED
One of the oft-heard criticisms of advertising is that it forces people to buy things they don't need by playing on their emotions. Underlying this criticism is a belief that the persuasive techniques of advertising are so powerful that consumers are helpless to defend themselves.
The fact is, however, that no matter how much advertisers try to convince us using their products will make us sexier or healthier or more successful, they can't make us buy the product if we don't want
Those who accuse advertising of manipulating consumes in effect have very little expect for people's decision-making abilities, assuming that they do that people are unable to resist advertising's hypnotic messages. But if advertising has such power to persuade, why is it that so many more products fail than succeed in the marketplace, and why have some products been highly successful with minimal or no advertising ?
As sociologist Michael Hudson points out to his book ADVERTISING, the Uneasy Persuasion, he powers of advertising has been greatly exaggerated.
BODY IMAGE AND ADVERTISING
Advertisers often emphasize sexuality and the importance of physical attractiveness in an attempt to sell products, 1 but researchers are concerned that this places undue pressure on women and men to focus on their appearance. In recent survey by Teen People magazine, 27% of the girls felt that the media pressures them to have a perfect body, 2 and a poll conducted in 1996 by the international ad agency Saatchi and Saatchi found that ads made women fear being unattractive or old. 3 Researchers suggest advertising media may adversely impact women's body image, which can lead to unhealthy behavior as women and girls strive for the ultra-thin body idealized by the media. Advertising images have also been recently accused of setting unrealistic ideals for males, and men and boys are beginning to risk their health to achieve the well-built media standard.
The Beautiful Message
The average woman sees 400 to 600 advertisements per day, 4 and by the time she is 17 years old, she has received over 250,000 commercial messages through the media. 5 Only 9% of commercials have a direct statement about beauty, 6 but many more implicitly emphasize the importance of beauty--particularly those that target women and girls. One study of Saturday morning toy commercials found that 50% of commercials aimed at girls spoke about physical attractiveness, while none of the commercials aimed at boys referred to appearance. 7 Other studies found 50% of advertisements in teen girl magazines and 56% of television commercials aimed at female viewers used beauty as a product appeal. 8 This constant exposure to female-oriented advertisements may influence girls to become self-conscious about their bodies and to obsess over their physical appearance as a measure of their worth. 9
A Thin Ideal
Advertisements emphasize thinness as a standard for female beauty, and the bodies idealized in the media are frequently atypical of normal, healthy women. In fact, today's fashion models weigh 23% less than the average female, 10 and a young woman between the ages of 18-34 has a 7% chance of being as slim as a catwalk model and a 1% chance of being as thin as a supermodel. 11 However, 69% of girls in one study said that magazine models influence their idea of the perfect body shape, 12 and the pervasive acceptance of this unrealistic body type creates an impractical standard for the majority of women.
Some researchers believe that advertisers purposely normalize unrealistically thin bodies, in order to create an unattainable desire that can drive product consumption. 13 "The media markets desire. And by reproducing ideals that are absurdly out of line with what real bodies really do look like…the media perpetuates a market for frustration and disappointment. Its customers will never disappear," writes Paul Hamburg, an assistant professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. 14 Considering that the diet industry alone generates $33 billion in revenue, 15 advertisers have been successful with their marketing strategy.
Advertising's Impact
Women frequently compare their bodies to those they see around them, and researchers have found that exposure to idealized body images lowers women's satisfaction with their own attractiveness. 16 One study found that people who were shown slides of thin models had lower self-evaluations than people who had seen average and oversized models, 17 and girls reported in a Body Image Survey that "very thin" models made them feel insecure about themselves. 18 In a sample of Stanford undergraduate and graduate students, 68% felt worse about their own appearance after looking through women's magazines. 19 Many health professionals are also concerned by the prevalence of distorted body image among women, which may be fostered by their constant self-comparison to extremely thin figures promoted in the media. Seventy-five percent (75%) of "normal" weight women think they are overweight 20 and 90% of women overestimate their body size. 21
Dissatisfaction with their bodies causes many women and girls to strive for the thin ideal. The number one wish for girls ages 11 to 17 is to be thinner, 22 and girls as young as five have expressed fears of getting fat. 23 Eighty percent (80%) of 10-year-old girls have dieted, 24 and at any one time, 50% of American women are currently dieting. 25 Some researchers suggest depicting thin models may lead girls into unhealthy weight-control habits, 26 because the ideal they seek to emulate is unattainable for many and unhealthy for most. One study found that 47% of the girls were influenced by magazine pictures to want to lose weight, but only 29% were actually overweight. 27 Research has also found that stringent dieting to achieve an ideal figure can play a key role in triggering eating disorders. 28 Other researchers believe depicting thin models appears not to have long-term negative effects on most adolescent women, but they do agree it affects girls who already have body-image problems. 29 Girls who were already dissatisfied with their bodies showed more dieting, anxiety, and bulimic symptoms after prolonged exposure to fashion and advertising images in a teen girl magazine. 30 Studies also show that a third of American women in their teens and twenties begin smoking cigarettes in order to help control their appetite.
Advertising is Superficial
Critics argue that advertising does not provide good product information at all. The basic criticism of advertising here is that it frequently carries little, if any, actual product information. What it does carry is said to be hollow ad-speak. Ads are rhetorical; there is no pure information. All information in an ad is, biased, limited and inherently deceptive.
Critics claim that ads should contain information on functional features and performance results. Advertisers argue in response that, in many instances, consumers are interested in more than a physical, tangible material good with performance features and purely functional value. The functional features of a product maybe secondary in importance to consumers in both the information search and choice process. Advertiser's critics often dismiss or ignore the totality of the product benefits, including the hedonic (pleasure seeking) aspects. The relevant information for the buyer relates to the criteria being used to judge the satisfaction potential of the product, and the satisfaction is quite often nonutilitarian. On the other hand, advertising apologists don't really understand how limited this "information" is. As evidence, they note how often the truth about products only comes about due to regulatory or legal action on this point. In truth, advertisers don't have the best record.
ADVERTISING AFFECTS HAPINESS AND GENERAL WELL-BEING:
Critics and supporters of advertising differ significantly in their views about how advertising affects consumers' happiness and general well-being. As you will see, this is a complex issue with multiple pros and cons.
CON: ADVERTISING CREATES NEEDS. A common cry among critics is that advertising creates needs and makes people buy things they don't really need or even want. The argument is that consumers are relatively easy to seduce into wanting the next shiny bauble offered by marketers. For example, a quick examination of any issue of the magazine Seventeen reveals a medium intent on teaching the young women of the world to covet slim bodies and the glamorous complexion. Cosmetic giant Estee Lauder Cos. Spends nearly 30 cents from every dollar of sales to promote it's brands as the ultimate solution for those in search of the ideal complexion.
PRO: ADVERTISING ADDRESSES A VARIETY OF NEEDS. A good place to start in discussing whether advertising can create needs is to consider the nature of needs. Abraham Maslow, a pioneer in the study oh human motivation, conceived that human behavior progresses through the following hierarchy of need states:
PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS. Biological needs that require the satisfaction of hunger, thirst, and basic bodily functions.
SAFETY NEEDS. The need to provide shelter and protection for he body and to maintain a comfortable existence.
LOVE AND BELONGING NEEDS. The need for affiliation and affection. A person will strive for both the giving and receiving love.
ESTEEM NEEDS. The need for recognition, status and prestige. In addition to the respect of others, there is a need and desire for self-respect.
SELF-ACTUALIZATION NEEDS. This is the highest of all the need states and is achieved by only a small percentage of people, according to Maslow. The individual strives for maximum fulfillment of individual capabilities.
It must be clearly understood that Maslow was describing basic human needs and motivations, not consumer needs and motivations. But in the context of an affluent society, individuals will turn to goods and services to satisfy needs. Many products are said to be directly address the requirements of one or more of these need states. Food and health care products,,. Home security systems and smoke detectors help address safety needs. Many personal care products, such as skin care system promote feelings of self-esteem, confidence, glamour and romance.
In the pursuit of esteem, many consumers buy products they perceive to have status and prestige; expensive jewelry, clothing, automobiles, and homes are examples. Though it may be difficult to buy self-actualization, educational pursuits and high intensity leisure activities can certainly foster the feelings of pride and accomplishment that contribute to self-actualization. Supporters maintain that advertising may be directed at many different forms of need fulfillment, but it is of little use in creating new needs.
UNFAIR AND DECEPTIVE PRACTICES IN ADVERTISING
FALSE PROMISES
Making an advertising promise that cannot be kept, such as "restores youth" or "prevents cancer."
INCOMPLETE DESCRIPTION
Stating some, but not all, of the contents of a product, such as advertising a "solid oak" desk without mentioning that only the top is solid oak and that the rest is made of hard woods with an oak veneer.
MISLEADING COMPARISONS
Making meaningless comparisons, such as "as good as a diamond," if the claim cannot be verified.
BAIT-AND-SWITCH OFFERS
Advertising an item at an unusually low price to bring people into the store and then "switching" them to a higher priced model than the one advertised by stating that the advertised product is "out of stock" or "poorly made".
VISUAL DISTORTIONS
Making a product look larger than it really is--- for example, a t.v. commercial for a "giant steak" dinner special showing the steak on a miniature plate that makes it appear extra large. Or showing a deluxe model that is not the same as the one offered at a "sale" price.
FALSE TESTIMONIALS
Implying that a product has the endorsement of a celebrity or an authority who is not a bona fide user of the product.
FALSE COMPARISONS
Demonstrating one product as superior to another without giving the "inferior" item a chance or by comparing it with the least competitive product available, such as comparing the road performance of a steel--- belted radial tire with that of an average "economy" tire.
PARTIAL DISCLOSURES
Stating what a product can do but not what it cannot do, such as claiming that an electrically powered automobile will go "60 miles per hour---without gasoline" and not mentioning that it needs an eight hour battery recharge every 100 miles.
SMALL-PRINT QUALIFICATIONS
Making a statement in large print ("any new suit in stock---$50 percent dollars off") only to qualify or retract it in smaller type elsewhere in the ad ("with the purchase of a suit at a regular price")
By giving consumers an attractive picture of the products available to them, advertising motivates them to buy. For example, advertising has created a personality for each automobile make and model on the market.
Advertising has both positive and negative effects on society that have led to important social and legal changes. Advertising itself has been greatly affected by the very laws it has been instrumental in creating.
The findings suggest that the framing of the third ---person effect and if alternatives in the context of social comparisons and cognitive adaptation theory may lead to a better understanding of the conditions under which people attribute message influence and the nature of the attributions. An expected, different combinations of message acceptance knowledge and perception of the message, beliefs, of others led to different perceptions of media effects.
THEORETICAL CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
As sociologist Michael Shudson points out in his book Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion, the powers of advertising has been greatly exaggerated. For one thing, people simply don't pay that much attention to ads. And when they do pay attention, they may not recall what product went with which ad (quick-which product is the "heart beat of America"?)
Another aspect of the manipulation argument is that advertising creates needs. Are underarm deodorants really necessary to life? Or has advertising created an artificial need by making us feel anxious about "offending" body odors?. Shudson suggests, "any new consumer product that does not disappear quickly is probably related to deep social currents. "In other words products that sell are meeting some kind of existing need in people; they are not creating that need. The fact that critics of deodorants do not see a "need" for such products does not mean users of the products don't perceived such a need. Do you need a VCR? Do you need frozen orange juice? Do you need ball point pens? These are all items you could live without but would probably buy anyway, even if they were not advertised. The role of advertising, then, is to help we make a decision about which VCR, frozen orange juice or ball point pen brand to purchase.
One such adverse effect, described by Naomi Wolf in her book The Beauty Myth is advertising's narrow message of the contemporary ideal of beauty : a seventeen-year old model who at over five feet nine inches tall weighs less than one hundred twenty pounds, has no wrinkles, blemishes, or pores. Wolf criticizes the media in general for the flawless and unrealistic illusions created by makeup artists and photographers. These illusions of unobtainable perfection negatively affect women, by inviting women to compare their unimproved reality with the air-brushed, illusive `Beauty Myth' models.
Wolf contends that the advertising which features these models, first erodes a women's self-esteem, then offers to sell it back to her one product at a time. Naomi Wolf and other critics of the advertising industry, such as Dr. Mary Pipher and Jean Kilbourne, assert that advertising preys upon insecure adolescents and women who are convinced that if they spend their money on the products advertised they will look like the anorexic models on display.
¡°Advertising aimed at women works by lowering their self-esteem. Our mass culture is heavily censored by beauty advertisers: as long as prime time television and the mainstream press aimed at women are supported by beauty advertisers, the shoreline of how women are in mass culture will be dictated by the beauty myth. The myth rules the airwaves only because the products of the process buy the time.¡± (Wolf 1991)
The persuasive power behind these influential advertising images is extremely complex. There are four primary female stereotypes perpetuated by advertising: 1) sexual objects, 2) homemakers, 3) man-dependent, and 4) seldom shown making important decisions or doing important things. More often than not, ¡°advertising portrayals are often criticized for depicting women in a narrow range of primarily traditional roles, encouraging the view of women as sexual or decorative objects and creating unrealistic and undesirable ideals for women to uphold¡± (Williams 1995).
Furthermore, Wolf maintains that few women are equipped with the strong sense of self and bodily identity necessary to look beyond the four primary stereotypes, preferring the beautiful `myths' to our own faces, bodies, and intellectual potential.
Beauty Sells Versus Irresponsible Advertising.
Are these aspersions cast by Naomi Wolf, Dr. Mary Pipher, Jean Kilbourne and others who have made careers by declaring such injustices legitimate? Is the advertising world guilty of irresponsibility in its unrealistic portrayal of women? Research, as of late, has proven that media images can deteriorate a women's sense of self, if she is in fact predisposed to accepting such negative beliefs. Nemeroff et al. state that ¡°women who internalize this thinness-as-beauty ideal may engage in extreme