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Every time we open a newspaper or we turn on the TV, we see sellers of almost identical products spending huge amounts of money in order to convince us to buy their brands. Every year, each typical American watches 1550 hours of TV, listens 1160 hours on radio, and spends 290 hours reading newspapers and magazines. So every day, each American watches 100 TV advertisements, 100 to 300 ads through other mass media, and in one single year receives 216 pieces of direct mail advertising, and almost 50 phone calls from telemarketers (Pratkanis and Aronson 2). All these, because sellers of everything, from computers to detergents, believe that advertising is essential to the product. Ed Ney, ex-chairman of the Young and Rubicam American agency, refers to the mid seventies when many firms still had as a debatable issue if they should advertise or not. Those days have passed. As Ney says, that has happened, because it has been proved that advertising is beneficial to the firms (Clark 16). The critics state that advertising is really beneficial to the consumers: They believe that advertising “creates� consumers that are better informed about the characteristics of the commodities, and that it does not alter the way in which the companies evaluate their products. Also, they believe that advertising creates price sensitivity for the consumers that buy the best products for their value. Finally, they think that with advertisement, entries for new brands are much easier because of the communication with the potential consumers that commercials offer (Haefner and Rotzoll 87).

Advertising, collective term for public announcements designed to promote the sale of specific commodities or services. Advertising is a form of mass selling, employed when the use of direct, person-to-person selling is impractical, impossible, or simply inefficient. It is to be distinguished from other activities intended to persuade the public, such as propaganda,...