Has Advertising Gone Too Far?

If you are like most modern Americans and have learned to incorporate internet into your everyday ritual, you may be surprised to know that you are being exposed to more than 1,700 banner advertisements every month.  The worst part is if you think this is a lot of exposure to advertisements you might be surprised to find out that everyday you were exposed to more than 3,000 marketing impressions.  You might be questioning this notion but remember marketing impressions are portrayed in a variety of different mass media outlets including banner ads, direct mail pieces, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, billboards, and through a variety of other means. 

This may seem like a lot of impressions but for most people, even myself, we tend to forget about most of these impressions by the end of the day unless the advertisement left a meaningful impression that made you remember its message.  

Take a minute and try to recap how many impressions you were exposed with so far today.

     
  So far today I was exposed too:

General Mills cereal box

Kemps Milk

A variety of different campus food stores where I purchase lunch

Campus advertisement - wall posters, email notifications, radio announcements

25% off Clothing - One Day Sale

Direct mail advertising for Ace Hardware

A variety of popups on my computer

Advertisements on the side of websites I am viewing

Email advertisements for new products

Facebook advertisements

Exposer hundred's of students  brand named items

and much more that I cannot recollect

However, if I was not paying close attention to the types of advertisements I was exposed to today, I would have a difficult time coming up with this list because most of these forms of advertisements have no effect on us.  The idea of tuning out an advertisement is not uncommon and at the end of the day most people will only remember five advertisements for the entire day.  With this being said successful advertisers must be able to cut through the clutter so that you will remember their message. 

The companies who are cutting through clutter are using a variety of different approaches to reach their target market which I will describe below.  When you are watching these advertisements ask yourself does this make me want to buy the product or support the cause, if so why?  I also want you to think about weather or not these advertisements is effective at reaching the audience; finally, I want you to ask yourself if this is morally ethical and a reasonable way to advertise to the public.  

These first advertisements use an experience the feel appeal.

Evian

I would say the goal of this commercial was to make the audience laugh while portraying the message: Drink Evian and feel young and energetic again.  The company wants to make sure that you remember their commercial but do you think that this is an effective way to sell water?  I would tend to think that this did not make you want to purchase water, it might have made you want to get out and be a child again or exercise but most people do not say that was an amazing commercial lets go buy Evian.  This particular commercial would be something that the audience would enjoy watching but it does not seem like an effective way for Evian advertising budget to be spending their resources if they want to gain more customers.  

Taco Bells

Warning: This commercial is generated in Spanish but you will still be able to understand the message.

We can see that this advertisement is directly targeting anyone who is in the baby boomer generation.  In my mind this commercial is brilliant because most companies do not advertise to the older generation in this fun-flashback way but I would tend to believe this commercial would make people want to buy more Taco Bell.  Though it would depend if this commercial was aired before lunchtime during a show where the target group was in their fifties and sixty this might just determine where they might go for lunch.  

These next commercials use an emotional appeal to convince their audience members.

Feed the Hungry Campaign

This commercial is made with the intent to target your emotions.  Emotional advertising seems to be the number one way to create an effective advertisement.  No matter how much money you have this commercial makes you appreciate what you have been given and makes you want to donate money to help these needy children and other children like them.  The reason why this particular campaign can be very effective is because of the images and the messages portrayed.  The goal is to make these images gruesome enough to make you want to donate money and make you feel like you are obligated to help these people.  Should this commercial be allowed to air on television?  This can be controversy because some people would think no because these commercial can be hard to watch and if a person does not have much money it can be hard for them to donate.  On the other hand they need to be allowed to air because without monetary support these companies would not be able to make an impact in these children's lives and it takes supporters like yourself to ensure these organizations continue to run.   

Anti-Smoking - PSA

Out of all the commercials I have displayed so far and will display this commercial/PSA is by far the most effective in my opinion.  This Anti-smoking PSA is brilliant and I believe it is especially effective for parents with young children who smoke because if they truly love their child they will now think twice before lighting their next cigarette.  

**Background about this PSA:

The goal of the Anti-smoking campaign with this commercial was to help 20,000 people quit smoking.  For this PSA the little boy did lose his mother in the subway station for a minute and they filmed what the child would experience without the parent.   

Wear your Seat Belt - PSA

This PSA uses an emotional appeal which we can see at the end of the commercial when the child and the mother reach out to help the father fasten his seat-belt as he is getting into an accident. This PSA seems to be effective because it makes you think about all the people you love and how you do not want to lose them or get yourself in an accident because of not wearing a seat-belt.

These next commercials uses sex appeal to sell their product.

These commercial are not quite like the ones above but they do spark buzz but not always in a good way for the company.  Remember earlier how I asked you to think about if the commercials you were viewing were ethically morally?  Now think about whether or not these commercials should be allowed to air on national television and throughout the internet.  

Skittles

Warning: this video may be taken offensively and if you believe it will disturb you please do not watch.

SEXplosion Skittles Candy (Look closely)

This commercial was released right before the 2013 Super Bowl and I find it to be crude and very upsetting.  Personally, I believe the reason why it is so offensive is because of the fact that is comes from such a well recognized children's candy company, Skittles.  The commercial itself was banned from national television but is still viewed by millions on YouTube.

Though this commercial does not seems to surprising me after their 2010 series of Berry SEXplosion skittles they sold in stores in 2010.  Even at my age I still find this commercial and the candy container to both be disturbing; with that being said the way the company chose to portray themselves makes me no longer want to purchase another pack of Skittles.  I find there to be no reason for a children's candy company to need to utilize the "sex" appeal in their campaign even if the motto is: sex sells.  What I find even more disturbing is that this is not the only commercial the company has had banned for this reason there are at least five more available for viewing on YouTube.  

Carls Jr. / Hardees

This is just one of Carl's Jr. and Hardees many 2013 banned commercials for being too sexy.  Seriously, ask yourself why a burger much less "Fast Food" burger needs to be portrayed this way?  The reason the company does this is the same as why Skittles did it because they believe sex sells.  This particular commercial has a few issues that arise when you watch it.  The main one is in the mind of the audience the woman is just an object and they are not treating her with respect which could potentially turn women away from the company if that is what they believe.  Secondly, the company uses a sexy woman to sell a fast food burger seductively which just does not happen when anyone eats a burger and the company is giving this false impression about their product.

I had to add this next commercial because I wanted to show you a prime example of an advertisement that has gone astray.  The company managed to create a commercial where they lost their message in all their clutter.  

Old Spice

 

Ask yourself, does this make you want to buy Old Spice?  For me this commercial does not make me want to buy Old Spice and I would not recommend Old Spice to others based off this commercial alone.

From a marketing standpoint I would be reluctant to say this advertisement increased sales.  The reason I say this is because the advertisement does not make the product stand out because they are hiding it behind to many other things.  This was similarly shown in both the Taco Johns and the Evian advertisement we viewed.  These advertisements do get the companies name out but they fail to sell the product and at the end of the day these advertisements would be considered unsuccessful at marketing their product.

These were just a few ways marketers tend to advertise to people through the television or internet.  There are many other forms of techniques advertisers use to try to sell products we tend to know what some of these other forms are but let's look at a few that probably did not create the message the company was looking for.  

Let's first look at a billboard.  Do you notice anything wrong with this?

When viewing this I am hoping the first thing that went through your mind was the fact that this is the worst type of product placement a company could ask for and it will not increase KFC's sales.  The massage that is created for KFC is worse than if the company would not have placed their billboard here.  What they should have done was either take down their sign or moved it so it did not read like KFC is the number one heart disease killer of women. 

Know let's look at a Vitamin Water cap which was sold in Quebec, Canada.

To you and me this message would be taken in an offensive way and should not have been put on the inside of a bottle cap.  What neither of us realized was that this was part of Cokes large make a sentence campaign where people who created and then submitted the best sentences won a prize.  Another thing we need to remember is because this product was sold in Quebec where the native language is French the word retard translates into the English word late.  That is one of the issues that global companies have to deal with because of the different language barriers that apply within different countries.

All the different things I mentioned and commercials we looked at earlier are just some of the ways we are being targeted by the media.  Even in the privacy of our own homes the media is still everywhere and most people tend to find it to be sickening.

So back to the original question Has Advertising Gone Too Far? Most people tend to agree that advertising has gone so far that we just try to tune it out.  If you look at the image on the right you will notice this is just one building in New York City.  It is really sad to think that companies are pouring out millions of dollars a year to place their ads in places that we the people are just sick and tired of seeing them.  What we all want is just one day where we can go around doing our own thing without someone trying to sell us something and we can make up our own decisions.  I understand that companies need to make money to profit but why don't I, the consumer, get to make my own choices on what I want to purchase and not have to constantly be bombarded with different advertisements everyday.

The last thing I want to leave you with is the question do you control your money or do advertisements and commercials.  I would urge you to spend a little more time thinking about what you want to purchase before spending your money on impulse items that you will just regret purchasing later on.

I would like to give credit to YouTube for providing us with a variety of different commercials we could view.