Advertising and Television

Ads are seen in TV shows all the time. From Friends to New Girl to Brooklyn 99, there are ads of some sort that are very present in the show. Friends for example, has many episodes where the group is drinking Coca Cola. New Girl has had many well-placed ads for the Ford Fusion, Range Rover, and many other cars in the show. Each character seems to switch their car from episode to episode, and guess who gets to see the up close shots of the car's cool features? Us, of course. Now I don't know about you, but I really want to buy a Range Rover now that I saw my favorite character drive it.
Reality shows where a person gets a new house or redecorates a house (like Mr. Starace) are the worst with this type of advertising. Each of these shows could spend 5 minutes talking about how good this and this product is, or ho this product is the one they will use since it work the best. As we have recently learned, the advertisers need to catch up and stand out to all us consumers, and this is by far one of the smartest ways. Yet a question I often ask myself is, does this form of advertising actually work? Yet I then realize that, duh, they must if they are becoming more and more apparent in TV and movies.
Almost all of America watches TV on a daily basis, and Americans, as per the stereotype, love spending money on useless things. So if a consumer is sitting on the couch and sees their favorite character use a product, it is very likely the person will suddenly want to buy the product. If my hero is using something then I have to use it right? The problem with this form of advertising is that it means that we are constantly surrounded by ads. We can't watch anything without their being some sort of promotion or ad present. This may not sound serious, and it really isn't. Yet it is detrimental to us because we are being brainwashed, in a sense, to crave a product because we see someone we love in our show use it. That is manipulating us and using our heroes or favorite things to sell or promote something that we don't need. I understand the competitiveness that is clearly present in our capitalistic society, yet there has to be better and less manipulative way to get us, the consumer, to want things right?

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