What is the impact of advertising on teens?

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/marketing-to-kids/what-is-the-impact-of-advertising-
on-teens

Teens are one of the most important demographics for marketers. Their brand preferences are still
gelling, they have money to spend, and they exert a strong influence on their parents' spending (even on
big-ticket items such as cars). Because 25 percent of teens access the Internet through mobile devices,
companies are targeting them where they hang out: in apps, in games, and on websites that stream
music and video and offer other downloadable content.

Teen-focused brands use a combination of traditional marketing techniques and new communication
methods to influence product preferences. Here are three key approaches:

Exploiting insecurities. Brands appealing to teens take advantage of their particular vulnerabilities: the
desire to fit in, to be perceived as attractive, and to not be a huge dork. Teens are extremely attuned to
their place in the peer hierarchy, and advertising acts as a kind of "super peer" in guiding them toward
what's cool and what's acceptable. Both teen boys and girls are highly susceptible to messages around
body image, and marketers use this to their advantage.

Tracking data. Once kids turn 13, companies have little restrictions over marketing to them and
collecting their data. The information they collect isn't personally identifiable -- it's far more valuable.
Tracking teens' digital trails helps companies precisely determine their tastes, interests, purchase
histories, preferences, and even their locations so they can market products to them or sell that data to
other companies. Talk to teens about using privacy settings and understanding what information they're
unwittingly giving to companies.

Using peer influence on social media. Advertisers actively enlist teen followers on social media to market
products. You can find this in online stores such as J. Crew's, where you can share items you like with
friends. Many brands encourage teens to broadcast their interactions with brands (such as uploading
pics of themselves with a particular purse, drink, or outfit). These techniques reinforce the idea that
brands "make" the person, and it's essential to help teens realize that their self-worth is not determined
by what they own (or don't own).
The Positive Effects of Advertising

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/positive-effects-advertising-24688.html

Effect of Advertising & Promotion on Consumer Behavior

Although people often focus on the negatives when they discuss the effects of advertising, it is
important to note that advertising does have its positive side. In fact, some of our society's most
important messages have come through advertising, like "Friends don't let friends drive drunk." In
addition to promoting important social messages, advertisements can also spark the economy by
fostering competition and innovation.

Public Service Advertisements

Public service advertisements are often the first things considered when people discuss the positives of
advertisements. These advertisements market a social concept of importance to the general public.
Many public service announcements run messages about health, safety and national security. In the
United States, the Ad Council, a nonprofit organization, sponsors many public service announcements.
Their famous lines include "Loose lips sink ships," a 1942 advertisement run to promote national security
during World War II. However, other nonprofit organizations, the government, faith-based organizations
and private companies also run public service marketing campaigns. For example, the U.S. government
has run a number of advertisements about the importance of disaster preparedness.

Social Benefits

In addition to public service advertisements, traditional advertisements that market a product or service
can offer social benefits. In fact, according to Megan VandeKerckhove, a student at the University of
Florida's Interactive Media Lab, advertising is free speech, and it can work to promote free speech.
According to VandeKerchkhove, this is especially true in countries where free speech has been
suppressed. Advertising there, especially when it comes from the Western world where free speech is
embraced, can encourage the idea that free speech is important. Furthermore, freedom of choice and
advertising-supported entertainment, which is often a promoter of social change, are two important
components of society that are both promoted through advertising.
Economic Benefits

Advertising has a number of positive effects on economies both in the U.S. and abroad. According to the
International Advertising Association, advertising can encourage companies to compete and provide
new products. This encourages more consumers to buy because these products meet the needs and
wants of more consumers. Thus, the economy is positively affected. In addition, advertising can help
create more jobs. As the demand for products and services goes up because of advertising, more people
are needed to manufacture, supply, ship and test those products and services. Thus, more jobs are
created.

Choice

In addition to encouraging consumers to choose the products that are best for them, advertising, at
least in democratic nations, allows individuals to learn about the wide variety of lifestyle and political
choices available to them and choose the ones that they find best. For example, in the United States,
candidates for an elected position often run advertisements that discuss their strengths and the
opponent's weaknesses. These advertisements encourage Americans to compare and contrast the
candidates and choose the one with whom they most agree.
How Marketers Target Kids

http://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/media-issues/marketing-consumerism/how-
marketers-target-kids

Marketing & Consumerism

Kids represent an important demographic to marketers because in addition to their own purchasing
power (which is considerable) they influence their parents’ buying decisions and are the adult
consumers of the future.

According to the 2008 YTV Kids and Tweens Report, kids influence:

Breakfast choices (97% of the time) and lunch choices (95% of the time).

Where to go for casual family meals (98% of the time) (with 34% of kids always having a say on the
choice of casual restaurant).

Clothing purchases (95% of the time).

Software purchases (76% of the time) and computer purchases (60% of the time).

Family entertainment choices (98% of the time) and family trips and excursions (94% of the time). [1]

Tarketing childrenAs a result, industry spending on advertising to children has exploded over the past
two decades. In the United States alone, companies spent over $17 billion doing this in 2009 – more
than double what was spent in 1992.

Parents today are willing to buy more for their kids because trends such as smaller family size, dual
incomes and postponing having children until later in life mean that families have more disposable
income. As well, guilt can play a role in spending decisions as time-stressed parents substitute material
goods for time spent with their kids.

Here are some of the strategies marketers employ to target children and teens:

Pester power

“We’re relying on the kid to pester the mom to buy the product, rather than going straight to the mom.”
Barbara A. Martino, Advertising Executive

Today’s kids have more autonomy and decision-making power within the family than in previous
generations, so it follows that kids are vocal about what they want their parents to buy. “Pester power”
refers to children’s ability to nag their parents into purchasing items they may not otherwise buy.
Marketing to children is all about creating pester power, because advertisers know what a powerful
force it can be.

According to the marketing industry book Kidfluence, pestering or nagging can be divided into two
categories—”persistence” and “importance.” Persistence nagging (a plea, that is repeated over and over
again) is not as effective as the more sophisticated “importance nagging.” This latter method appeals to
parents’ desire to provide the best for their children, and plays on any guilt they may have about not
having enough time for their kids.

The marriage of psychology and marketing

To effectively market to children, advertisers need to know what makes kids tick. With the help of well-
paid researchers and psychologists, advertisers now have access to in-depth knowledge about children’s
developmental, emotional and social needs at different ages. Using research that analyzes children’s
behaviour, fantasy lives, artwork, even their dreams, companies are able to craft sophisticated
marketing strategies to reach young people. For example, in the late 1990s the advertising firm Saatchi
and Saatchi hired cultural anthropologists to study children engaging with digital technology at home in
order to figure out how best to engage them with brands and products. [2]

The issue of using child psychologists to help marketers target kids gained widespread public attention in
1999, when a group of U.S. mental health professionals issued a public letter to the American
Psychological Association (APA) urging them to declare the practice unethical. Although the APA did not
outright ban psychologists from engaging in this practice, as a result, the recommendations of their final
report in 2004 included that the APA “undertake efforts to help psychologists weigh the potential ethical
challenges involved in professional efforts to more effectively advertise to children, particularly those
children who are too young to comprehend the persuasive intent of television commercials.” [3]

Building brand name loyalty

Canadian author Naomi Klein tracked the birth of “brand” marketing in her 2000 book No Logo.
According to Klein, the mid-1980s saw the birth of a new kind of corporation—Nike, Calvin Klein, Tommy
Hilfiger, to name a few—which changed their primary corporate focus from producing products to
creating an image for their brand name. By moving their manufacturing operations to countries with
cheap labour, they freed up money to create their powerful marketing messages. It has been a
tremendously profitable formula, and has led to the creation of some of the most wealthy and powerful
multi-national corporations the world has seen.

Marketers plant the seeds of brand recognition in very young children, in the hopes that the seeds will
grow into lifetime relationships. According to the Center for a New American Dream, babies as young as
six months of age can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots. Brand loyalties can be
established as early as age two, and by the time children head off to school most can recognize
hundreds of brand logos.

While fast food, toy and clothing companies have been cultivating brand recognition in children for
years, adult-oriented businesses such as banks and automakers are now getting in on the act.

Magazines such as Time, Sports Illustrated, Vogue and People have all launched kid and teen editions—
which boast ads for adult related products such as minivans, hotels and airlines.

Buzz or street marketing

The challenge for marketers is to cut through the intense advertising clutter in young people’s lives.
Many companies are using “buzz marketing”—a new twist on the tried-and-true “word of mouth”
method. The idea is to find the coolest kids in a community and have them use or wear your product in
order to create a buzz around it. Buzz, or “street marketing,” as it’s also called, can help a company to
successfully connect with the savvy and elusive teen market by using trendsetters to give their products
“cool” status.

Subservient ChickenBuzz marketing is particularly well-suited to the Internet, where young people in
particular use social networking platforms to spread the word about music, clothes and other products.
It should come as no surprise that the top ten viral marketing campaigns (as of 2008) relied heavily on
YouTube, Hotmail and Facebook to reach hundreds of millions of viewers—and this was before Twitter
became a mainstay of social media. For example, when Burger King re-launched its ‘Subservient
Chicken’ TV commercial online in 2004, it attracted 15 million hits within the first five days and more
than 450 million hits over the next few years. [4]
Commercialization in education

School used to be a place where children were protected from the advertising and consumer messages
that permeated their world—but not any more. Budget shortfalls are forcing school boards to allow
corporations access to students in exchange for badly needed cash, computers and educational
materials.

Corporations realize the power of the school environment for promoting their name and products. A
school setting delivers a captive youth audience and implies the endorsement of teachers and the
educational system. Marketers are eagerly exploiting this medium in a number of ways, including:

Sponsored educational materials: for example, a Kraft “healthy eating” kit to teach about Canada’s Food
Guide (using Kraft products); or forestry company Canfor’s primary lesson plans that make its business
focus seem like environmental management rather than logging.

Supplying schools with technology in exchange for high company visibility.

Exclusive deals with fast food or soft drink companies to offer their products in a school or district.

Advertising posted in classrooms, school buses, on computers, etc. in exchange for funds.

Contests and incentive programs: for example, the Pizza Hut reading incentives program Book It! in
which children receive certificates for free pizza if they achieve a monthly reading goal; or Campbell’s
Labels for Education project, in which Campbell provides educational resources for schools in exchange
for soup labels collected by students.

Sponsoring school events: The Canadian company ShowBiz brings moveable video dance parties into
schools to showcase various sponsors’ products.

In addition, companies are also recognizing the advantages of developing positive brand associations
through facilitating school field trips. In the U.S., the highly successful company Field Trip Factory
delivers children to companies for “real-world lessons on everything from nutrition to health care.” For
example, students may visit a car dealership to learn about car safety. This is seen as a win-win situation
by many educators and retailers because it lets children have hands-on experiences outside their
classrooms, while building positive associations between companies, students and their parents and
teachers. [5]

The Internet

The Internet is an extremely desirable medium for marketers wanting to target children:
It’s part of youth culture. This generation of young people is growing up with the Internet as a daily and
routine part of their lives.

Parents generally do not understand the extent to which kids are being marketed to online.

Kids are often online alone, without parental supervision.

Unlike broadcasting media, which have codes regarding advertising to kids, the Internet is unregulated.

Sophisticated technologies make it easy to collect information from young people for marketing
research, and to target individual children with personalized advertising.

By creating engaging, interactive environments based on products and brand names, companies can
build brand loyalties from an early age.

The main ways that companies market to young people online include:

Relationship building through ads that attempt to connect with consumers by building personal
relationships between them and the brand.

Viral ads that are designed to be passed along to friends.

Behavioural targeting, where ads are sent to individuals based on personal information that has been
posted or collected.

Endorsements by online “influencers” who are paid to recommend a product in what looks like a
genuine way.

For more information on how marketers are targeting kids online, check out the Online Marketing
section.

Marketing adult entertainment to kids

In 2008, an estimated 17 million children watched the Superbowl with their families. Alongside the
football, they also watched a number of highly creative and engaging ads for beer and alcohol.

The marketing of adult entertainment to children has been, and continues to be, an ongoing issue
between government regulators and various media industries. In a report released in 2000, the U.S.
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took movie, music and video games industries to task for routinely
marketing violent entertainment to young children. Subsequent reports since then have shown that
although advances have been made – particularly within the video game industry – there are still many
outstanding concerns relating to the frequency that adult-oriented entertainment is marketed to
children and the ease with which many under-age youth are able to access adult-rated games, movies
and music. [6] Specific areas where the FTC is calling on entertainment media to improve on include
restricting the marketing of mature-rated products to children, clearly and prominently disclosing rating
information and restricting children’s access to mature-rated products at retail. [7]

In its latest, 2009 report, the FTC particularly noted the challenges presented by emerging technologies
in facilitating easy access by children to adult-rated entertainment.

The real challenge is that promotionhip-hop artist Snoop Dog of adult-oriented entertainment does not
necessarily fall within the parameters outlined by regulatory agencies such as the FTC. For example,
Nickelodeon’s 2011 Kids Choice Awards were hosted by hip-hop artist Snoop Dog, who, in addition to
producing music that is not rated for children, is also a spokesperson for the fruity alcoholic beverage,
Blast. Alcohol companies also use social networking platforms like Facebook to humanize their brands
and make it easy for customers to ‘connect’ with their products.
How Advertising Manipulates Your Choices and Spending Habits (and What to Do About It)

https://lifehacker.com/5824328/how-advertising-manipulates-your-choices-and-spending-habits-
and-what-to-do-about-it

Advertisements aren't inherently bad, but many use manipulative tactics that influence in ways we don't
even realize. Despite how much you think you ignore them, and how little you may believe they affect
you, that's not necessarily the case. Here's a look at how manipulative ads work, the problems they
cause, and what you can do to avoid these negative consequences.

You see ads every day, whether it's on a web page, before a movie, or in the middle of a TV show, and
it's easy to say "they're just ads" because, at worst, they feel like a nuisance or interruption. A lot of
people have difficulty accepting the idea that ads are manipulative because we want to believe we're in
complete control of our choices. While the concept of advertising isn't inherently problematic, we've
moved on from the "Eat at Joe's" sign to far more complex and sometimes even moving, cinematic
messages that are designed to create significant memories of a product. These memories are created
because an ad succeeds at making us feel something—whether it's good or bad—and that emotional
response can have a profound effect on how we think and the choices we make. Not all advertising is
bad, but we're going to take a look at what's problematic, what isn't, and ways you can avoid the
negative effects associated with so much of what you passively experience.

The Problem: Advertising Is for the Rich, Not You

Photo by Andrew Magill

Advertising exists because there's a product a company wants to sell and they want people to know
about it so they can buy it. This much is obvious. Sometimes that product is a cleaning spray or a
microwave oven, but often it's yet another article of clothing, a gadget, another meal out, or something
else you don't necessarily need. These advertisements aren't for the average person with a small
amount of spending cash, but rather they're for the rich.

Rich people don't make up a large portion of any population, but they're the ones with money to spend.
They can see an ad, decide they want a product, go buy it, and it has very little effect on their wallet. The
problem is that we all see the same advertising but can't necessarily afford the purchases. We all want
the lifestyle of the rich, as we see it depicted in television, film, and commercials.

We Reference What We Desire

We're not so blind that we believe our studio apartments are servant-filled mansions, but we see people
in similar situations on television who live in a way we couldn't afford. Take the show Friends, for
example. Rachel and Monica shared a gigantic apartment in Manhattan despite Rachel working, for
some time, as a waitress and Monica as a chef. Collectively they enjoyed a lifestyle they couldn't afford.
This is one example of many in which you'll find TV characters living outside their means with no
consequences. Entertainment shows us average people living a better lifestyle than they can afford
without many monetary concerns. And then we're shown advertisements, compelling us to buy the
lifestyle depicted in our favorite shows. According to David M. Carter, a financial analyst and graduate of
the master of applied positive psychology program, this is called referencing:

Experts in the field call it "referencing". We reference, either intentionally or otherwise, to lifestyles
represented to us (in the media or in real life) that we find attractive. We create a vision of ourselves
living this idealized lifestyle, and then behave in ways that help us to realize the vision. The problem with
this process is that the lifestyles most often portrayed, and ultimately referenced, are well beyond the
means of all but a very small percentage of Americans. We aspire to something that the vast majority of
us cannot possibly achieve. And, in this attempt to realize our aspirations, we borrow heavily, feel poorly
about ourselves because we just can't seem to get there, and become addicted to a way of living that
gradually and inexorably separates us from the things in life that bring us the most joy.

The Resulting Debt

We've borrowed a lot. According to American Consumer Credit Counseling, we carry over $680 billion
dollars in revolving credit and over 1.7 trillion dollars in total debt. That comes out to about an $10,700
per household with only about half of individual credit card holders paying their balance in full each
month. This is bad by itself, but factoring in high interest rates and the inability to afford more than the
monthly payment—while the desire to spend doesn't decrease at all—this turns out to be a huge
problem. It's particularly hard to get rid of debt when the desire to spend doesn't go away. It's always
there because we are constantly receiving messages to want more and more things that we can't afford.
How Manipulative Advertising Works (and What to Do About It)

There are all kinds of ads, but in general they all aim to keep you from thinking and, instead, make your
buying choices based on an emotional response. Here's a look at some of the tactics and what you can
do to counteract them.

Don't Forget to Think

Advertising exists to tell you about a product, which can be as simple as "Brand X soap cleans your
dishes" or "Restaurant Y serves food." Of course, when there's competition in the market the ads you
see need to be a little more descriptive in order to set products apart. For example, a restaurant may
serve a reasonably tasty, unhealthy hamburger in under a minute, but why would you choose theirs
over another? Because they said so.

According to Dr. Julie Sedivy as you can't really tell the difference between a strong and weak
arguments:

A pivotal study by Ellen Langer and colleagues provides one of the earliest demonstrations [regarding
the ease of persuasion]. In this experiment, students in a university library were approached by an
under-cover experimenter who asked to jump ahead of them in the photocopying line and make a few
copies. Sometimes, the experimenter would justify the request by saying "May I use the Xerox machine,
because I'm in a rush?" But other times, no explanation was offered. Not surprisingly, students were
more reluctant to grant the favor when the experimenter didn't bother to justify the request. But the
justification didn't actually have to provide a good reason-it just needed to sound like one. So, students
complied just as readily when the experimenter gave a "placebo" explanation that was utterly without
content: "May I use the Xerox machine because I need to make some copies?" Apparently, just
decorating the sentence with the word because was enough to sway the students.

Basically, if you're not prepared to think—and you often are not when you're watching television or
reading a magazine—you'll pretty much accept any suggestion if it is offered to you. Since you're being
so passive, you may not even realize it's happening.

What can you do? Think. When your parents used to tell you "because I said so" you probably weren't
ready to accept that answer. Don't do it subconsciously when watching an ad. Think about what the ad
is saying. Play devil's advocate and consider the negative aspect of the products that definitely aren't
being shown to you. It only takes a few seconds to consider that the chalupa you're seeing may or may
not contain actual meat. Keep your brain active when you're looking at ads and you'll be better off.

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Be Wary of Your Emotional Responses

No ad is more effective than one that makes you feel something because emotion and memory are
tightly linked (more on this here). The video on the left belongs to Google and is considered to be one of
the best commercials that aired during the 2010 Super Bowl. It uses search strings to tell how a young
man goes to Paris, meets a women, falls in love with and marries her, and they start a family. What
makes this ad so good is that it not only made many people feel good, but it also demonstrated 1) how
Google works, and 2) that Google appears to be an effective way of finding any information you might
need throughout your lifetime. Does it tell you whether or not Google is better than another search
engine? No. Does it provide you with any potential downsides to using Google, such as whether or not
the search results were actually useful? Of course not. It shows you that Google can find lots of different
kinds of information and it makes you feel something to be sure you remember it. You may even
remember that the scenario describe in an ad happened to you.

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Lifehacker Asks Tim Ferriss

2/02/18 5:02 pm
If you've ever purchased movie theater popcorn—which is among the unhealthiest foods you can eat
(not to mention overpriced)—or chosen something pretty over something functional, you've made an
emotional choice based on desire rather than thinking about it logically. This is not to say emotions are
bad, but that without a balance of emotion and logic you might not always make the best choices.
Emotional ads try to capitalize on that phenomenon. An effective ad gets you to buy the product, not
buy the product and be happy with it. When you have an emotional response to an advertisement, you
need to be wary of any decisions you want to make regarding the product it's selling.

The arousal of emotions passes with time, and so there are a couple of good things you can do to avoid
any negative results. First, when thinking about buying something you want to identify whether your
motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic. David Carter explains:

Intrinsic motivation is represented by self-acceptance, affiliation, and community feeling. Extrinsically-

motivated people, on the other hand, focus on financial gain, their appearance, and social popularity.
They generally seek acceptance by something or someone outside themselves.

If your motivation is extrinsic, chances are you want to avoid purchasing this thing you believe you want.
Desire can be a powerful thing for people, and consumer addiction is a problem, so another tactic that
can help is to enforce a mandatory holding pattern on your spending. Basically, the idea is that you
require yourself to wait 48 hours before deciding whether or not to make a purchase. If you think you'll
need help with this, find a friend who can hold on to your credit card. Make them the gatekeeper to
your purchases. If you truly have an addiction to spending it's not going to go away immediately. Get
someone you trust to help you out.

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Watch Out For Products Indirectly Targeted at You

You want your dog to be healthy, but it's not like you're the one eating the dog food so you'd think
you're more likely to make a logical choice when choosing their food. That's not necessarily the case, as
ads can target you very well even if you're making a decision for somebody else.

The ad pictured here (see more) depicts two skinny dogs engaging in human-like intercourse while a fat
dog watches. The tag line reads, "LIFE'S HARD when you're a FAT DOG." This ad is designed to be funny,
but it's also designed for people to think about how humans judge fat people and play on their desires
to lose weight. The ad isn't selling a better sex life for your dog—a dog that is likely spayed or neutered
—but playing upon human concepts of sex and beauty. Sure, a fat dog is likely an unhealthy dog but
where in this ad do you learn why the dog food is healthy? You don't, because, again, the ad isn't
targeting logic—it's targeting your emotions. You don't ask whether or not the dog food is healthy
because the ad is asking you if you care whether or not your dog is healthy. These types of ads make no
real claims. They simply identify the problem and you connect the dots. You assume there's a
connection when there may not be one at all.

So what do you do about it? You do your research. When you view an ad, it helps to ask why. Why am I
reacting the way I'm reacting? Why does this product solve a particular problem? If the product interests
you, the answer should too. Look for product reviews (while being aware of fakes) and other
information that can help you determine if what you want to buy can actually do what you think it can
do. Don't buy blindly—do your research first.

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Avoid Ads Entirely

Muting or skipping ads on any medium may seem like an effective way to solve the problem, but
ignorance doesn't mean the ad isn't still lodged somewhere inside your memory. While avoiding ads
entirely is pretty much an impossible prospect, you can still make the effort to get as close as possible.
Of course, this means making sacrifices.
If you want to cut out ads from television and never, ever see them, your options aren't necessarily
great. You can buy DVDs when they come out several months after the television season has ended, you
can purchase content at a premium (either online or on demand through your cable provider), or you
can download content via the internet (which may require a set of flexible ethics). You can't remove or
block ads in a magazine or newspaper, so you'll have to start reading online and use an ad blocker. Even
with all of that, you still can't avoid billboard ads or ads you see outside of your personally cultivated ad-
free zone. You're also not without the influence of reference lifestyles (as discussed earlier) unless you
cut out entertainment media altogether. You simply cannot live without ads if you want to be a part of
modern society, but a significant reduction is possible using the aforementioned methods.
 The Influence of Television Advertising

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/influence-television-advertising-64010.html

What Are the Advantages of Advertising on TV?

Despite the growing strength of social networks, television advertising is still the most influential
medium in people’s purchase decisions. A report from the Television Bureau of Advertising and
Knowledge Networks Inc. reveals that 37 percent of television viewers make purchase decisions after
watching advertisements on television compared to 7 percent for social networks. Impact and
persuasion are two factors for a successful TV commercial that arouses viewer interest immediately and
remains memorable. Television advertisements demonstrate their influence in a variety of ways.

Gender Identity

Television advertisements influence gender differences between male and females. For
example, the frequent use of male voices in voice-overs conveys the notion that males are more
credible and authoritative than females. Television advertising influences the impression role-
appropriate behaviors for both genders, affecting the popular perception of what makes a successful
male or female. For instance, commercials about cosmetics further the notion that women’s
responsibility is to remain attractive forever.

Children

Television nurtures in children a desire to have freedom of choice, which is important in making
purchase decisions independently of their parents. Advertisers find them easy to influence into spending
money on the advertised product. Some children become so obsessed with products they see on TV ads
that they pester their parents to get the products for them. TV commercials further expose the young
ones to a dollar’s power and teaches them that they can acquire anything with the right price.

Voter Decisions
 Political ads on TV can influence voter decisions. Using TV to promote a political campaign helps
to avoid selective exposure and gains the attention of 70 percent of voters. People who have little
information about a political candidate or are not interested in a political campaign often change their
attitude toward candidates after viewing their advertisements. Political commercials also influence the
way voters evaluate a candidate.

Social Influence

Television advertising promotes the notion that buying products equals happiness. It nurtures a
consumer culture that encourages people to buy new products as a way to conform to the society’s
goals, values and pleasures. Advertisements also create public awareness about important issues such
as diseases, charitable causes or environmental degradation. For example, health agencies can use TV
for health advertisements focusing on Alzheimer’s disease. NGOs or social organizations use
commercials to attract volunteers for a charitable activity to better the welfare of others in the society.