The very first advertisements were made in Britain already in the 17th century. Much has changed from those days. Today advertisements are everywhere and it would be difficult to imagine our lives without them. The means of mass information grew very strong and influential and advertising is always present there. Whenever we turn the TV on, read a newspaper or a magazine, walk along the city or listen to the radio, we can see, hear or watch numerous advertisements. I often wonder, why there are so many advertisements of different products, places, things or happenings? Do we really need them? what makes them so influential?
Trying to find an answer to this question, one has to remember about the special sophisticated methods and techniques of making advertisements. Several sociological and psychological methods are used to make the advert available and understandable for as many people, as possible. One famous person making the advertisements for Benetton says that the advertisements are not meant to sell ideas or products, but to sell the 'false and hypnotizing model of happiness'. In general, commercials are not supposed to show the truth or the reality. Their creators have to make up different kinds of metaphors, which have to make the customer desire the advertised product. The commercials show us exaggerated advantageous aspects of the product. Some people consider it immoral and in France the government even forbade using in the advertisements and commercials adverbs and adjectives in the highest degree.
Many of us think that the commercials have no influence on ourselves. But I really do not believe that we are right. Almost all people want to have newest and best products. We follow some trend or fashion in many areas of our lives. To make the advertisements attractive for some special target- group, the producers have to use appropriate techniques and have wide knowledge about the fashionable things in this special group. Nowadays, when hip-hop is very popular among the teenagers, the advertisements use that kind of music and behaving to advertise products for young people. Advertisements are supposed attract our attention. They show us the unreal world of the beautiful and young people, who live happy lives thanks to the products they bought.
In my opinion, advertising has a strong influence on people's lives in contemporary world. It is a marketing tool, as well as a mean of manipulation. The commercials and advertisements make us follow the unreal pattern of live and not to thing about what we do at all. They make us want more and more things and become more and more materialistic. It would be better if we tried to be more reasonable and think on what we do and buy ourselves.
