I’m working on a paper for my business ethics class and the topic is regarding advertisements and their influence. The main focus is the average American consumer. I have some articles assigned to read and comment on, but I thought the topic is relevant to this blog.  The bad news is that the assignment won’t let me include any outside sources, good new is that this blog doesn’t have that constraint. If you have any thoughts on the matter, please share.

Photo Credit:  顔なし

John Kenneth Gallbraith, an economist, had a quote in his article The Dependence Effect:

“A man who is hungry need never be told of his need for food.”

The thought behind it was that advertisments for actual needs aren’t as cost effective because the consumer already wants it. They’ll find the closest and cheapest food that they can.

Photo Credit: joshstaiger

Here’s a cheesy example:

You put a billboard ad for some great sandwich place. It looks great, wonderful font, clear directions to the place.  If the very hungry (completely famished)  person  happened to be right by a (comparable quality) hotdog stand looking at this delicious and wonderful ad. He has money to pay for the product and he can walk to the sandwich place.

There’s huge chance he’ll take the hot dog stand as a choice rather than listen to your ad and walk 5 blocks down to your cafe. His immediate need has to be satisfied.

Many people that I know have their basic needs filled. They have a roof over their heads, food in their belly to keep them alive, and clothes on their backs. The have some discretionary income left over after taking care of their needs.

With wants or ‘extended’ needs,  advertisers have more leverage. Now the trick is to get the consumer to believe that this product is necessary. It’s a mixture of psychology and marketing to get an ad to be successful. I’m thinking of the bottle water industry and luxury apparel as examples. People spend huge amounts of money on products that aren’t necessarily needs.

With the current economic situation where foreclosures and huge debts on credit cards, who is to blame?

I think that consumers are ultimately responsible, but it would be foolish to say that advertising has no effect. After all, Google makes over 90% of its money from advertising and companies spend billions of dollars of their money for marketing and ads. I refuse to believe that they are tossing this at mere chance.

What do you think? Next post will be how this relates to our Disney World vacation.

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