Mass Communications Essay

Advertisers have only one mission to achieve and that is to attract attention of possible buyers so that this attention can translate into the actual buying of a product or service. With this objective in mind, advertisers depend very much on projecting their advertisements that adhere to motivations and stimulus of their target market. When advertisers know what things catches a woman’s attention, they are sure to be able to communicate their other messages afterwards. For example, for products and services that target the women market, advertisers approach advertising activities on things that will make women stop, look and listen. For young adults, it would be handsome men, beautiful clothes and anything that is consistent with prevailing fads. Motivations for older women would be handsome men, anything for their families’ well being, anything to preserve youth and beauty. Besides physical points that advertisers use to lure attention, there are other factors that help advertisers reach more audiences and that is to project interesting and convincing topics such as cause oriented, value driven campaigns. Some products such as Body Shop advertise their support for women entrepreneurs worldwide. Products stamped with ‘organically grown’, ‘baby-friendly’ or ‘smoke-free’ attract women who are health and family oriented. Some advertisements such as beauty products get prominent doctors to endorse their products and this adheres to the safety issues that their women market is privy of. Three ads that catch my appeal are Body Shop, Apple Macbook and Dove Soap. Least appealing to me are Guess Jeans, car ads with sexy girls sitting on the cars and the Marlboro ads. Looking into the list above, I realize that the advertisements I find appealing are the advertisements that insert social concern and value to women as part of the company’s corporate mission and vision. Body Shop products are similar to other beauty products but their advertisement of helping suppliers from third world countries strike a chord inside me. Dove Soap commercials promote women’s preservation of beauty that does not need surgery or alterations. For me, Dove Soap advertisements adhere to my own idea of ageless beauty. Stereotyping is often used in advertisements because it reaches more people who usually have the same notion of what men are, of what cars are and what women are. I believe that using women’s body or men’s body as a means to attract attention to a product or service is poor taste. It appeals to instincts and therefore borders the animalistic nature of the people that should not be turned on because it is almost like regressing to becoming an animal once again. A â€Å"bad ads† are advertisements that are tasteless. They do not respect any culture and would trample on the sensitivities of people’s lives and uniqueness just to get attention. These ads get attention no matter what. Advertisers of bad ads believe that bad or good publicity is still publicity. â€Å"Bad ads† do not have any effort to invest on social responsibility. It is unfortunate that ‘bad ads’ proliferate more than ‘good ads’ because they actually are the ones who catch more attention just by the mere fact that they are bad. Bad ads catch the attention of both informed and misinformed consumers therefore bad ads must be regulated and policed. The power of advertisers is tremendous in terms of communicating beliefs and ideas to the mass audience. As for my part, I have to remain vigilant against advertisements that might catch my attention but have hidden persuasions that will lead to losing the treasured values I have. Especially being a woman myself, my support to bad ads will only hurt my own disposition and respectability as a woman. If I would want to be treated right, I must support advertisements that respect the role of women rather than abuse it. References: Body Shop Commercial Atwan, Robert. 1979. Edsels, Luckies, and Frigidaires: advertising the American way. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Cohn, David L. 1940. The Good Old Days: a history of American morals and manners as seen through the Sears, Roebuck Catalogs 1905 to the present. New York: Simon and Schuster Evans, George Heberton, Jr. 1948. Business Incorporations in the United States, 1800-1943. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.,