USES AND ABUSES OF ADVERTISEMENTS

Advertisements are a common sight today. Wherever we go we can see various kinds of advertisements displayed in various ways.

If we turn the pages of a newspaper or a magazine we come across many advertisements with attractive multi-coloured pictures. In addition to the advertisements appearing in handbills, posters. newspapers and magazines, there are other more effective kinds of advertisements on the cinema, radio and the television.

It is really advertisements that make newspapers possible. Great journals draw the greatest part of their profits from advertisements. Advertisements not only provide income to the newspaper, but also they add colour and brighten the paper. These attractive advertisements are designed by advertising firms.

There is a great competition in the business world today. Manufacturers have realised that they are able to sell their products only by giving publicity to them through advertisements. The producer informs the customer of the products through advertisements. The advertisement provides the customer an opportunity to choose between several brands of goods.

It is said that certain advertisements lure a customer into buying a product that he does not really need. Most of the customers compel to buy such products because of their gullibility.

Since these advertisements are watched by all, both young and old, it is the younger generation onwhom the impact is more. They are so mesmerised by the product advertised that they pester their parents to buy them the product.

In certain advertisements, women are exhibited as commodities that sell. They are vulgarly displayed for their sex appeal, and this culture is being aped by many countries.

If advertisements are good and intelligent, they can educate the public, but this is hardly what is projected on television and movie screens. Some of them are so well conceived and presented that they are a welcome change. Some of them can be quite appealing even without visuals by the way they are presented and the construction of slogans that are eyecatching.

The advertisers should always keep in mind not to do any harm to our moral values and culture through their advertisements.