Nowadays, advertisements are always present in our lives. Whenever we go and whatever we do, we always see or hear some advertisement. They are exposed on the streets, in TV and radio, in the newspapers and so on. We usually don't give much attention to them, but we should be aware of their influence on our minds. They not only inform us about different products, but also make us do certain things.
The most important purpose of advertising is to make the customer buy some product. Many people work on good campaigns. There are experts on marketing as well as psychologists among them. They work on attracting our attention. They use certain techniques and tricks to make the advertisement more effective. They hardly ever are honest. Most of them are pure liars. For example, there are advertisements that make you believe that you can look like a teenager, when you are already in your forties. It certainly cannot happen, even is you use thousands of different cremes. Those, who produce the product as well as those, who create advertisements don't really care for your skin. The only thing they want is your money. They would never admit that their product might be replaced by any other.
Nevertheless, there are also other kinds of advertisements. Some, usually presented on the billboards, are prepared by certain organizations and their goal is to give the public information about different things. For example, they tell us, where to go when you have problems with alcohol or drugs. They give information on AIDS or other diseases. Such advertisements are supposed to make us concentrate on some problem, to make us aware of different things that happen in the society. They are definitely more honest than the advertisements of some products. They give you more detailed knowledge on some subjects. However, I would not say that they do not manipulate on your mind at all. It is only less measurable than in case of the other type of advertisements.
Summing up, in my opinion, advertising is a mean of manipulation. We have to be aware of it and perhaps this will help us weaken their bad influence.
