Advertising, through smart operations, appeals to a target audience’s emotions with an irresistible selling lure. It is meant to influence the target’s purchasing behavior and entice them to purchase a certain product. Adults have the power to make critical judgments and select products that match their actual demands regardless of the advertisement presented to them. This paper aims to outline the reasons why governments should ban ads directed at young people by examining the given excerpt.
Ads targeting young people should be banned because, unlike adults, young people may not fully comprehend the persuasive nature or ironic undertones disguised in commercial messaging. For instance, the alcohol ads attempt to link drinking alcohol with virility, sexual success, and high-class lifestyles while hiding the fact that excessive consumption of alcohol is a key predictor of poverty. They appeal to the young people’s emotions and fantasies of wanting to achieve high-class lifestyles, virility, and success but intentionally leave out the dangerous repercussions that follow alcohol consumption.
Company strategies to set up alcohol billboards in front of schools and playgrounds are wrong. This is because students and youths should be protected when they are in school and on playgrounds. These are the environments that they should feel safe in, and the presence of such billboards is distracting and unsafe for the youths. It messes with their free time and studies as they could easily get distracted. This results in a distracted generation of youths who spend their quality time thinking about what they see or hear instead of focusing on studies and sports to better build their lives (Malik & Perveen, 2021). Conversely, targeting youths who may not have any sources of income exerts pressure on their parents and often results in crime as they attempt to get the needed capital to acquire the advertised products.
Governments should ban ads directed at young people because it creates a fictitious notion of happiness that is untrue, and young people may not have the ability to discern that from the truth. This means that youths may not be in the capacity to comprehend the persuasive nature or ironic undertones disguised in commercial messaging. They end up taking the products since they appeal to their emotions and forget that these actions may have dreadful repercussions. Additionally, schools and playgrounds should be safe zones for young people, and they should be free from advertisement pressures brought by advertisement structures put near such places.
References
Malik, O., & Perveen, A. (2021). Television Advertising and Its Impact on Children. International Research Journal of Management and Social Sciences, 2(2), 62-73.