How Advertising Affect Mass Media

Advertising started with the start of trade; however, advertisers who worked professionally in old days were initiated when the public criers moved through the streets of cities to announce about any unusual products to sell. Ads were not used often and if ads existed they used to be about goods that are imported from abroad and those that are in town are usually known through the civilians.
People utilized or used advertising from their use to maximize and improve daily work environment. Mass production produced quantities of goods at low prices. If people knew about the low prices they would buy, so advertising was key. And therefore advertisements had a great impact on them.
Advertisement is a decisive mean which affects public judgment, sales, image, political campaigns and competition. It can affect people on what they buy through repetitive ads, even if the audience thought at the beginning that it is an irritating ad. It also affects the newspaper and magazines as both of them are full of ads and if the ads were removed or not present the cost of newspaper and magazines will be high and they will be smaller in size. Not only that, but also people depends, nowadays, on ads to get information about the goods that are in the market.

An immense dilemma is facing advertisement; it is losing its credibility. Advertisers use deluding techniques which tramps the customers. They, in a way or another, deceive the viewers by uttering explicit statements which mislead consumers to an extent they stopped relying on them. This was revealed by declaring unsubstantiated claims for medical products, using words such as “perfect”, “absolutely” and “unrivaled” tricked the people into buying the products and medicines, which made buyers, lose trust in all these ads. But unfortunately, this backed fire not only on consumers, but also on the advertisers, because some advertisers have good products to propose but no one believes them.

People started to get annoyed and realize that there is something going wrong. They required a filter to rid confusing ads. Mr. Edward Bok, Editor of Ladies Home Journal, Collier’s weekly, a news papers started a movement on fraudulent medicines. Moreover, Printer’s Ink, a magazine, started huge campaigns to attack and regulate standards to overcome mal practices of advertisers and to reach a point were they can say “Truth in Advertising”. As a result, the congress formalized the “Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906”, which aimed that medicine ads should adhere to certain criteria. Subsequently, in 1914 the Federal Trade Commission passed a law to emphasize the importance of ethical advertisement.Editors and broadcasters are forced to compete for a survivable share of remaining advertising income by looking for new ways to reach potential markets with less to spend so they inserted half hour commercials masquerading as entertainment. Advertorials and infomercials are described as vehicles that are presented in a way hard to distinguish from regular editorial copy or standard programming. So, the insert carries an indication that labels it as advertising. One way the commercials are designed to look like news or entertainment programs is by carrying on famous faces as if they are guests in a talk show. This results in increasing the sales of products and concerning many people about the product due to the nature of the ads. In addition, there is a trend to expect more advertorials and infomercials because this type of adverting works efficiently.