Reklama - forma manipulacji, czy narzędzie marketingowe - Advertising - a Form of Manipulation or a Marketing Tool

Advertising appeared for the first time in Europe in the early 17th century and Britain was the pioneer. Nowadays we can observe a great development of different means of information transfer. Mass media are connected not only with the show business, entertainment and science but also with trade, the stock exchange and other fields of economics. Today almost any newspaper page and TV programme is peppered with numerous advertisements and commercials. What does the phenomenon of advertising consist of? First and foremost, it is connected with special techniques for creating adverts, striving for maximum impact on people's minds by using psychological methods. According to a poster maker Benetton - advertisements do not sell products or ideas but a false and hypnotizing model of happiness. Half-truths rule the world of advertising. It means metaphors and embellishments can be used in advertising presenting the advantages of products. But in some countries such practices are forbidden as, for example, in France where one cannot use adjectives and adverbs in the superlative form in commercials and advertisements.

But who is able to resist the temptation created by commercials and advertisements? Sometimes it is very hard, as we want to have the best products, we want to be modern. With enthusiasm we let ourselves be persuaded to follow various fashions. For some time now Polish advertising industry has been using techno music which is extremely popular with young people. It is commonly known that one of the most important aims of advertising industry is to attract people's attention. That is why most commercials and advertisements feature the young and the beautiful. This contrasts with all the disasters in the world shown on the news.

To form an opinion on the problem given in the topic, it is worth watching the TV programme by Tomasz Kamel - "Kup pan cegłę". The programme exposes the mechanisms of advertising and tries to show its true dual nature.

To sum up I would like to say that advertising is both manipulation and a marketing tool. Some psychologists say that advertising can be dangerous as excessive submission to standards does not always bring favourable effects. And even if it seems to be impossible to avoid the contact with advertisements and commercials we can defend ourselves from its influence by treating it with a pinch of salt.

[Arkadiusz Szymczak]