Persuasive Advertising Essay

Over a trillion dollars is spent to get people to “want” not “need.” Advertisements have been in American society since the day we broke off from Britain. As time went advertisements have become more apart of every Americans life. No person can escape advertisements, walking down the street people see them, on phones people see them, music, radio, Television, countless of ways to get to people. The question is, do advertisements actually do their Job by persuading a person to have an interest in whatever the advertisement is showing. Advertisements are successful in the fact they do grab the attention and do get results by people in particular areas or socioeconomic groups. Companies target different audiences with different types of advertisements,

The largest and most influenced audience is children. There is a saying, “If you get them early you get them for life.” Most children will see an advertisement on a nerf gun for example, and that advertisement has the gun looking huge and the people in the advertisement in army clothes or an intense situation. When a child looks at an advertisement like that they begin to think that they are that kid has to duck, dive and shoot and has a responsibility and makes them feel bigger than they actually are. This a deceiving technique advertisers use to pick up young kids to buy this product. Furthermore, look at teenagers; they always want to have the most in fashion or “coolest” items that makes them fit in better. Stores like old navy can target teenagers because they are vulnerable to feeling the “coolest” or in style. If old navy advertises with key words like “new” or “best” it attracts teenagers to be the best or newest. On the other hand, you find a different not as popular store selling the same items cheaper, but

Most deception occurs in lower income communities with money as the topic. Look at Los Angeles certain parts will have many billboards advertising gets money quick schemes. Yes, the advertisements look appealing when passing them on the freeway but once the effort is put in to do the, “get money quick scheme,” the person does get money; but the person always has to pay in back with insane interest. That’s what the company does not tell you and what the advertisements do not show. Retailers also do the loopy loop around laws so they squeeze by fraudulent and untruthful claims. Advertisements have intelligent people behind the words. They know how to make a statement sound one way, but when a person looks back at the statement closely it means something completely