Advertising and Society

Advertising has been assaulted by its critics who contend that apart from selling products and espousing ideas, advertising influences society in unwanted and intrusive ways. It is all–pervasive and persuasive too. This gives it the ability to shape the social attitudes. Many defend advertising on the basis of economic benefits. In addition, advertising fosters freedom of expression and supports the media. It not only provides information about the products and services, but also about the social issues. While influencing the society, advertising too is influenced by the society – it acts as a mirror which reflects the social changes. The language, idiom and illustrations in advertising conform to the socially accepted practices.
Whether advertising is good or bad to the society is to be examined on the basis of issues. Let us examine a few issues.

Language and Literacy
It is charged that advertising corrupts the language. It tweaks the sentences, spellings and grammar to make a point. It uses ‘Hinglish’ in India, and plays fast and loose with the rules of language. The audience too copies the same. Such erosion can affect the literacy level.
Advertising uses the language that people it wants to reach use. There is no intention to sully the language. It just reflects what the audience uses. While reaching the youngsters, it uses a jingle like ‘har ek friend zaroori hota hai‘. Advertising language is thus less–than–perfect. It tweaks words so as to make them distinguished trade marks or brand names, i.e. Kwality instead of Quality.

Manipulation and Exploitation
Does advertising lure you into buying what you do not need it all? Does it exploit people? Critics accuse advertising of powerfully swaying people to use the advertised products and services. Advertising, they say, exploits your hidden anxieties and play upon your fears. It kindles hopes and takes advantage of your inadequacies. Advertising manipulates you psychologically. Advertisers make you believe that their products give you social status, you receive love and acceptance by using them.
In defence of advertising, they say that there is nothing wrong in persuading people to identify their needs and offer them a suitable product to match those needs. What advertising does is to inform people about the products available, about the choices people can make. Advertising makes the market more efficient for both the advertisers and the consumers by passing on information.Advertising cannot create demand for a product that is not needed. Advertising stimulates you to buy but if the product that meets your needs is not available, you do not buy. No amount of advertising can make you buy a product that does not work, or does not satisfy your needs. People have been found holding against advertising by skipping them when TV commercials are being shown. They have the freedom to turn the pages of the print media of they are not interested in the product advertised. That the skepticism  shown by people acts as a counterbalance against the persuasive power of advertising.

Stereotyping
Advertising creates many stereotypes – the behaviour is generalised on the basics of a particular slot, class or group. This is the usual criticism of advertising. Thus we may have a daughter–in–law who is dominated by the mother–in–law, who is reprimanded.  As in compressed 10 second commercial, it is difficult to build a character, some sort of visual cues are used to judge these characters. The problem with this approach is that a whole group is stereotyped – elderly people are senile, and women are housewives. Such stereotyping may strengthen the prevailing prejudices against these groups.

Such stereotyping in a diverse country like India may alienate several potential customers. If women are shown in correct perspective it may open up a wider market. The situation is slowly changing. Thus a modern daughter–in–law wins the acclaim of the mother–in–law by showing her expertise in culinary skills, home management etc. In addition advertising models are all handsome young men, and fair women. They do not represent a vast hinterland population of the weak, poor and backward. However, many ads now show models drawn from real life, thus a real shopkeeper recommends a particular product. Advertisers should feature more and more people from the socially disadvantaged groups.

Influence on the media
Advertising, we know, sustains media by providing it revenues. In the process, it is so alleged, it exercises great influence on the editorial content of the media. Media faces an actual or implied threat of the pulling the ads. When media writes about business, it exercises caution.
On the other hand, media is affordable for a large number of people mainly on account of advertising. Had media been solely dependent on government funding, it would have been the worst situation. Media sells advertising to many advertisers, and therefore, not  unduly influenced while disseminating news. Media supported by many advertisers is a better proposition than the wholly government supported media.
Still media avoids the controversial topics that may offend the advertising sponsors. The alternative is to have media without advertising. But such media, not subsidised by ad revenues, becomes too costly. People will have to pay for even radio and TV programmes.

Bad Taste and Offensiveness
Advertising is often criticised for being in bad taste, or at times totally offensive. However, here one has to separate the product from the presentation, say a bra which is an inner garment for a woman. Maybe, it is not portrayed tastefully. It should be noted here that taste is a subjective thing. What is acceptable to some remains  objectionable to others.Over a period of time, the seemingly offensive things appear less distasteful on account of social changes.In addition, certain ads appear to be offensive in other media.Advertisers have to remember that ads of questionable taste generate debates but may not achieve the ultimate aim of generating sales.

Advertising and Social Responsibility
As members of the society, advertisers too owe a responsibility to it.It is going beyond your own objectives of  profits, growth and survival.Agencies produce ads that promote social causes – save water, save power, do not use drugs etc. Many businesses put these ads in the media.Then there are non-profit organisations and government bodies who too promote such messages.Media too willingly donates time and space for such messages.

Advertising and Ethics
The role of ethics in advertising has been debated since long.There is a call for more ethical advertising.There are  some fraudulent ads which invite public criticism and at times legal action.This has led to a self-regulatory body such as ASCI : Advertising Standards Council of India, some regulatory laws, some codes such as the Doordarshan Code to define what the advertisers can do and cannot do.There are two issues here–ethical dilemmas and ethical lapses.

An unresolved ethical question where both the sides have their own set of arguments is called an ethical dilemma.Whether a cigarette manufacturer be allowed to promote or not is an ethical dilemma.If allowed, it leads to harmful effects on the population.If not, the manufacturer’s right to the freedom of speech and its right to sell a legal product are violated.In all ethical dilemmas, there are conflicting rights of two or more important groups of people.

An ethical lapse is just unethical. A detergent contends that it has the power of lime, but does not contain any lime at all is an ethical lapse.