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Advertising has grown in recent times to be an industry in itself and no business can ignore its potential. Informative and persuasive advertisements often influence the buying decisions of customers. In your opinion do advertisements exert a positive or negative influence on customers?


Advertising is one of the fastest growing industries in today's world. It is booming at an exponential rate and it is nearly impossible for any business to survive in today's competitive market without exploiting its potential. But advertisements exert a negative influence on customers because they promote materialism and have harmful effects on children and affect the moral fabric of the society in a negative manner. However some people argue that advertisements provide information about the product attributes but this is not true as information provided is not always genuine resulting in no actual information dissemination.

The major negative influence of advertisements on customers is the fact that it promotes materialism. By trying to prove that 'material possession' would lead to 'social acceptance' and popularity they encourage people to focus only on material aspects of life (Belch et al, 2001:76).For instance Jetta's (Volkswagen) advertisement campaign focused more on life style theme rather than the product (Geist, 2005).Furthermore it is claimed by the commercials that all problems of a person's life can be eliminated by 'application of some external force - the use of a product' (Jones cited in Mohan, 1998:24). This has lead to deterioration of values in the society. Now people buy goods to impress theirs neighbours and the benefits received from that product are not important but what is important is the fact that others know what they cost (Russell, 2003: 70). Moreover advertisements increase discontentment in people by overstating the requirements of a happy life. They claim that without a particular product life is incomplete or...