Whether you like it or not, advertising is here to stay. And it is one of the reasons why Facebook still exists as a free service to millions of users around the globe.
Photo Courtesy of Flickr
If
Facebook does not offer advertisements to brands, you would find yourself
paying a membership fee to be able to connect to your loved ones using the
popular platform. But since Facebook gets its income from brands wanting to
promote to users, the social networking site need not collect money to pay its
engineers, business plan developers, marketers, and other people behind it- not
forgetting its CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Even in newspapers, advertising spaces help pay the cost of publishing the material. Almost 75% of the publishing cost is being handled by regular and classified ads sections of a newspaper. Thus, subscription or retail prices that you pay are incredibly low.
Let us be learned enough to understand that advertisements, whether annoying or not, makes a service, product, or event possible.
One of the major criticisms that is no longer interesting to talk about (although we are giving it a last call in this article) is the ability of advertisements to fool around with people.
Have you already seen an advertisement that has this: UP TO 90% OFF. Then when you visited the store, you find that almost all of the items are at 5% off but there is one out of the 1000 items that is indeed at 90% off.
If you talk to an advertising professor or anyone from the academe, he would say that that strategy is LEGAL yet UNETHICAL thus still UNACCEPTABLE. Try discussing it with an advertising practitioner, and he would judge the strategy EFFECTIVE.
Let
us face the reality: advertisements are made to persuade people to avail of a
service or a product, nothing more nothing less.
Even Public Relations’ infomercials are leaning towards the acceptance of a brand. Infomercials are articles, audio clips, posters, videos and other multi-media materials created to educate the people for their own social welfare, indirectly pressing the brand on the people/audience.
Knowing that all products and services have their own benefits and disadvantages, advertisements focus on the positive aspect to sell the brand. However when the people discover the un-advertised negative side of the brand, complaints start pouring.
Common sense would tell you that you do not make advertisements to spread the disadvantages of your brand. It is not fooling; it is merely looking at the brighter side.
Join
the discussion. Leave an interesting comment.
Blogger Comment
Facebook Comment