Advertisement Nightmare

Do you ever get tired of advertisements? You get slammed with these different ads every day on television, the internet, the radio, in paper publications, and even on billboards while your driving down the road. They want you to shop at their mall, buy at their store, use their wrinkle cream, try their hamburgers, eat at their restaurant, get their hair done at their salon, or get treated by their doctor. All of these services are pushed in your face unwillingly in bold letters and pictures. Now I admit to reading Vogue Magazine, which has a high concentration of advertisements within its publication. I do enjoy to look at these fashion advertisements, because I mostly love the designers of the clothing and accessories which is advertised. Many fashion magazines also carry very unhealthy standards of beauty, which can lead to various different health problems for women and young girls. This type of problem can also come from commercials on different television networks as well. Some of them give a negative impression on body image through clothing advertisements. Even though I read magazines, I've selectively chosen to not watch commercial television. I feel I should be able to buy a product because of what the product is made of, the consistency of the product, the cost of the product, and the overall quality of the item itself. I don't need a person on television claiming that I must buy it. I don't need a girl telling me that Dove has a 1/4 moisturizing cream in their soap, while rubbing it all over their face. If I need to watch Family Guy, I can watch Hulu. Otherwise, everything else is PBS and paid cable channels like Starz, Encore, etc.

Most food products on the whole may not be the best thing on the market or may be filled with saturated fats which can cause lethal heart attacks but, with the right marketing strategies, these products will be top sellers. This is completely disgusting and very misleading. Showing a burger with tomato and lettuce that is filled with heart clogging cholesterol and calling it delicious should come with a health disclaimer. I believe it should be marked just like cigarettes. Soda and other unhealthy items should have the same warnings on their packaging. Maybe if these warnings were placed on the labels of these products, people would be less likely to purchase them. Cigarettes are still sold with the same warnings on them, but I really think that they should keep escalating the price of tobacco until those who smoke realize that it's wrong to do so. I know that it took me a great deal of time and willpower to give up smoking, but I realized that the money I was spending was ridiculous. They should also stop advertising for stores such as tanning salons which promote damaging conditions such as skin cancer. These tanning beds cause lethal cancers such as melanoma, which is the deadliest form of skin cancer. These advertisements, right or wrong, are test marketed to find key demographics in order to find the correct section for their commercial or sales pitch.

I can understand that a great deal of these people that end up in these commercials use that thirty seconds in order to find their way into acting. That's fine if you need that time in your career but, honestly, I think that companies try to lead us by the nose to by products we really don't need. Do we really need to buy Cheez-Its or Doritos? Somehow I really think not. I think that most of my problem in life is that I was lead by corporate advertising, and it's something that I'm trying to reverse with better diet. I wish I lived in a better place where there is more sustainable agriculture year round, but I will try to enjoy what I can during the Summertime months. I can't honestly help certain materialistic aspects of my personality, such as my love for all things Burberry or my insane love of my BlackBerry and Apple devices, but those are something that I've been been informed of second hand with very little advertising. I actually found most of my information about my electronics through reading about them in books and my Burberry bag was purchased without seeing it in an ad at all. I think that we can all try to make steps to buy products without looking at advertisements. Even when I shopped for my latest netbook, I looked for components rather than a name. I wasn't really interested in whether or not it was an Apple or an HP. I just needed to find a computer that carried the essentials for my college work. It just turned out that Gateway was able to give me those components for a price that I was able to afford. I think it makes it much more adventurous and you look for quality and necessity rather than what someone else recommends for you.