Importance of Advertisements

Today, advertisement is the best means of success in almost all fields. A businessman who cries the loudest sells the most. All big industrialists and business houses spend huge sums of money on advertisements. The purpose of advertisements is to inform the consumers about new products. The advertisement also promotes the existing products or services. It enables us to make good decisions while shopping, Advertisements tell us which new products are available in the market.

Advertisement is an art. Like all arts, it is partly a God-given gift and partly an art perfected through constant training and practice. It is said that a good advertiser can sell a refrigerator even to an Eskimo who lives surrounded by snow. A good advertisement can make any product popular. Man is busy today. He has no time even to think about himself. Therefore he depends on advertisements for his shopping. Goods that are advertised in newspapers or in the electronic media find a ready market. Through advertisement, one can also know the prices. Prices vary from time to time. One can look at a newspaper and seek information about the latest rates. The advertiser generally assures a buyer that a product will maintain its quality. Sometimes, simple gullible buyers are misled into buying things of poor quality also.

Advertising has a dark aspect also. It tends to raise the cost of the products. The advertiser has to spend a lot of money on advertising. All this expenditure has to be borne by the consumers. Thus advertising assaults our pockets. Many a time, an interesting advertisement encourages us to buy things that we really do not need. Many people influenced by advertisements spend their hard-earned money on useless things. Many advertisers offer attractive financial schemes to boost their sales. As a result, the simple consumer gets trapped in a vicious circle of loans. He has to pay heavy interest on the amount. In this way, he pays much more than the actual price of the product.

Some advertisements also lead to the lowering of the price because of increasing competition. Newspapers, magazines, commercial radio, and television — all carry advertisements. In this way, the people at large get information and entertainment that would otherwise be unavailable. One can easily conclude that what we lose on the swings, we gain on the roundabouts. The advertisers are also answerable to the consumer courts. They are punished if they put up wrong or misleading ads. To conclude, one can say that advertisements are a mixed blessing. While buying a product we shouldn’t be influenced by advertisement alone. The buyers should use their own judgments also wisely and judiciously.