Advertising and our buying habits

Advertising has been increasing and developing itself throughout history, since its beginnings, more people have been involved in trying to develop and think about the many benefits it has on sales. Some sociologists are hired to measure the effects advertising has on people to think about the different products to be launched.

Advertising, is to some extent, a means of communication, but not any kind of, it is a one way of communication whose only purpose is to show a product to the people to be bought by them. Advertisements are full of words such as ‘the best’, ‘the fastest’, ‘the cheapest’, ‘save money from’; all these words combined in different ads may lead us to buy certain products which appear in those ads. People do not often consume products which are unknown to them, on the contrary, many tend to buy things that they saw on the T.V., or in Internet, or different means of communication.

Many people believe that the ads provoke a desire to consume those products that are shown there. This is, at the same time, one the main basis of consumerism and its effects on people. By being exposed to different ads, a necessity of owning them is created and we are all affected by those ads, but, we may react differently. According to our social status we may afford different amounts of products, especially if we are wealthy enough. In contrast to this, some people who cannot afford this kind of products may react differently, for example they may just give up the idea of buying it in that moment, waiting for the time they can afford it. But, in this same case, some people who cannot afford it, and at the same time, cannot wait to have the money to buy it, have started stealing products or even robbing money to get them.

The main theme is how can we leave this aside and go on without being influenced by ads? It is difficult to leave them aside, because we are always looking at ads, they are everywhere. From my point of view, it is a matter of self-consciousness, in which we should think of those things that are really relevant for our lives at the time we are living. Unfortunately, it looks like a chain, which we cannot be apart from, and we need to consume in order to remain in it.