Advertising

Definition

Advertising describes the methods used in industrial societies to promote and market products. The technique and media, such as newspapers, cinema, and television, used to inform a larger audience about the quality and availability of goods and services are referred to as advertising.

Two sociological arguments

The first central claim is that advertising influences individuals to purchase items they do not need and, in general, helps to create and sustain a consumer culture. This viewpoint has been developed in large part by Marxist scholars.

Adorno and Marcuse, for example, have made the case that advertising plays a crucial role in the upkeep of capitalism by inducing false demands in consumers who are drawn in by the flow of commodities. However, many non-Marxist authors also took views against advertising, claiming, for instance, that it fosters and upholds materialistic ideas in society or encourages the sale of dangerous products such as alcohol or cigarettes to weaker individuals.

It has been argued that advertising does not directly convince individuals that they must own the products in issue, even if they do not need them; at most, it may persuade them to switch brands in response to such arguments. However, it is impossible to imagine that advertising does not have a more prominent cultural role.

According to the second line of reasoning, advertising is a kind of communication that contributes to forming a distinct societal culture. As a result, most modern civilizations are immersed in advertising, which is disseminated via many channels.

Thus, advertising might play a role in developing a consumer culture where people seek positional products that support their sense of identity. It could also contribute more broadly to a postmodern society that values pictures above other things while celebrating consumption. So, for instance, recent examinations of advertisements from today have shown how much more image- and text-dependent it is now than it was fifty years ago.

Semiology

Jean Baudrillard (1970), drawing on semiology, stated that in contemporary cultures, consuming involves the “active manipulation of the sign,” leading to the creation of the “commodity sign” by fusing the sign and the commodity.

The influence of advertising has been an important topic in contemporary sociology because of this background.

Vance Packard 

Vance Packard presented a picture of an arsenal of psychological and sociological advertising methods that made these approaches look all-powerful in his well-known sociological exposé, The Hidden Persuaders (1957). The word “admass” was first used in the 1950s by author J.B. Priestley to characterize the urge toward consumerism that mass advertisement fostered in contemporary countries. Additionally, according to Packard, marketing encourages consumption to solve social and political issues.

False needs

Advertisement produces “false demands” that are ultimately unfulfilled by conspicuous expenditure, in the mistaken notion that acquiring material goods would bring happiness and serenity.

Feminist approach

Feminist theories of advertising have adopted a different tack, highlighting its persistent sexism as one manifestation of its more pervasive use of ageist, racial, and gender stereotypes. Feminists who study the advertisements industry often criticize the objectification of women.

Postmodernism

According to postmodernism, lifestyle and consumerism are more relevant to everyday experience than class. Advertisement is seen in this context as alluring rather than deceptive, and advertisement firms are increasingly eschewing socioeconomic categorization systems in favor of terms like “consumer class” and “lifestyle group.”