Advertising, marketing, sales Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Advertising, marketing, sales - Essay Example The pervasiveness of advertising in the modern world is one of the key features of the consumerist economy. Rarely do people today make decisions on what to buy without the aid of the information provided by advertising on all forms of media. The consumer and the producer are the two parties in the exchange - and each party, on the part of the consumer, his wants and needs and the producer, on his part, the goods or services to give form to those wants and needs. Apparently, the market acts as the clearing ground for this exchange and both parties are satisfied. The role of advertising in the market is purportedly for the purpose of the consumers making informed choices on the myriad of products and services that are available. This is based on the assumption that people more or less know what they want and that producers make available to consumers as much as possible information about the product, within the framework of encapsulating the needs of the consumer. When a situation ari ses, when these assumptions are questioned, both parties are in danger - on the part of the consumers, vulnerable to undue influence or manipulation as to their needs and wants, and on the part of producers, prone to charges of exploitation and manipulation.In the article, The Dependence Effect by John Kenneth Galbraith, states that modern advertising and salesmanship are the vehicles for which production creates, not merely communicates, the needs and wants that present-day consumers come to identify as their own. He further charges more categorically that "their central function is to create desires - to bring into being wants that previously did not exist." This statement calls into question the assumption of current theory of consumer demand that rests on "independently determined desires", the primary cause that determines the effect of goods being available in the market. If the arrow of the relationship switches, with the producer, through the instruments of advertising and m arketing, becoming the creator of the cause of the demand - then the consumer buying goods, has become, rather the effect. The consumer, in this light, has become, a mere automaton, a human being stripped of his freedom, not only to choose, but more likely, inwardly, a being who has lost grip of his primary needs and wants. With the most profitable corporations in today's world, also increasingly the biggest spenders on adverting, and if the scenario of the loss of consumer of freedom holds, then human beings on a wide scale are in danger of becoming mass robots, mere puppets to satisfy the greed of corporations. Galbraith, further raises the specter of public services, becoming more and more neglected as private wants dependent on the output of producers - the case of "an implacable tendency to provide an opulent supply of some things and a niggardly yield of others." This situation, according to the author further leads to social and economic problems as consumers under the influe nce of the process of production creating more artificial desires fail to make the choice to satisfy their desires for public goods and services. Galbraith has delved into two main critiques: one that, advertising is actually involved in desire creation, rather than the purported function of providing information to the consumers; and two, that in the case of the facts - the amount spent on advertising as indicators of their big role in the production process and in creation of artificial desires, the dependency effect is an overwhelming evidence that producers or the process of production "determines" consumer demands and needs. In response to the first critique, Robert Arrington, provides a more nuanced approach to the charge of advertising controlling the buying behavior of consumers (Advertising and Behavior Control). He examines the concept of autonomy, being "complex and multifaceted". In the case of desire, being autonomous, that is coming independently from the consumer - in reality, he writes, desire can be induced, but this

Global environment Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Global environment - Research Paper Example Over the time, the elevation in the population rate declined the natural reservoirs. In other words, the natural resources are coming under intense pressure with its vast usage by the population that is creating a threat to the health of the entire population of the world. Moreover, it is also creating a warning sign for the social and economic development as well. This is due to the reason that natural reservoirs have come under consumption to the maximum level in the process of production as the inhabitants principally count on these resources the most, consequently, drastically impacting the environment on a global basis. â€Å"However, one of the principal and leading challenges that the planet Earth and its entire human race is encountering while crossing the threshold into the twenty first century is the universal environmental pollution and the climatic variation that comes under alliance to it. In addition, this global environment wears and tears are in a continuation process, which has become one of the foremost and focal concerns in the today’s life†. The thought that the public are exploiting the nature and the resources in order to meet the current needs gives rise to the question that are the human beings of this world deteriorating the natural resources that is one of the major needs for the future as well. According to studies and researches, it has come to an observation the developing countries with an intention to improve the living standards of the common people, these economies are utilizing the natural resources more rapidly and in a much accelerated pace than they are restoring or redeveloping these resources. As an outcome of it, these developing nations are creating a permanent and irremediable damage to the natural resources. Moreover, with carrying out an unbearable growth and expansion for the natural resources, the humankind is encouraging and giving rise to the ecological disasters that contribute to deteriorate the environment on an enduring basis. Water shortages, soil exhaustion, air and water pollution, lack of forestland and trees, and degradation of coastlines are few of the instances that are the leading contributing factors that may badly affect numerous regions and districts of the world. The records and evidences divulge the piece of information that the twentieth century was the epoch that witnessed a revolution that resulted in the strange and bizarre environmental turmoil. The human creatures and their actions and doings are the chief and salient causes that triggered such environmental turbulence. However, the global environm ent has dramatically affected the lives of not only the human beings but also the other living creatures such as marine life, plants, animals and many other types of species. Moreover, these environmental risk and jeopardy embrace shift in average temperature and the weather, weakening of the ozone layer, ecological change, urbanization and