IS ADVERTISING BECOMING A NUISANCE...?

Advertising is the form of commercial mass communication designed to promote the sale of a product or service or a message on behalf of an institution, organization or candidate for political office. Evidence of advertising can be found in cultures that existed thousands of years ago, but advertising only became a major industry in the 20th century. Advertisements have become a major source of customer awareness at present society. The people are told what they should buy, where they should go for spending the vacation, what should they use to keep the body attractive, what the perfume they should use, what clothes we ought to wear etc. In that sense actually advertisements play a prominent role in day to day lives. Advertisements should be eye catching so they increase the curiosity of the customers and they finally buy the product. Some advertisements are intended to promote an idea or influence behaviour such as encouraging people not to use illegal drugs or smoke cigerattes. Thus advertisements have become very powerful today. Because off its positive influence on people it cannot be termed a nuisance.

Today there are different terms of advertising such as television, radio, press advertisements, glow signs & leaflets. Today they have become the life blood of business. Companies need to advertise not only to launch new products or increase their market share but also to maintain their presence in the market. There is a cut throat competition among the companies. It is the person who shouts the loudest that attracts the attention. Actually the customers would not known of the existance of many good things if they were not advertised.

The most common criticism we hear about advertising is that it promotes consumerism. Consumerism itself is no evil for it directly helps in raising the standard of living of the people by accelerating economic growth & development. Most developed countries like the USA, Europe etc have greatly influenced by it. But in the urge of outdoing the competition many companies go in for an overkill. In that case the advertisements they make are meant to deceive the public by puffing worthless goods or grossly exagerating the quality of inferior articles. Mostly women are used in advertisements. Their nakedness is often exploited to attract readers. It is indeed a disgrace to womanhood & to the dignity of women. Such kind of sex appeal, cheap gimmickry & exagerated claims make advertising demeaning. So, there is a need for inculcating some discipline on it. There should be a censor board to check the quality of the advertisements before their approval. Thus the degredation of this powerful medium can be prevented.

So it is unfair to say that advertising is becoming a nuisance. Wise advertising can help a customer to choose his goods and buy them at cheapest price. The thing is that there should be some control over the nature of advertisements & over the costs also. There should be new mediums of advertising with a code of conduct. It will be a immense support for the customers to get their works done easily.