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Thanks for complimenting Kimberly and I am grateful that you raised the point of whether we speaking of only TV ads or not.

Well as far as my understanding goes, we talking of every form of advertisement. So TV and print ads are covered too.

And though you are right about certain ads being totally misleading, but I would not put every ad in the same category. I think only "How to Make your Skin fair" and Make Money On The Internet" are the type of ads that try to mislead and brainwash you to the maximum. The rest ads can be easily spotted if you look at it carefully.

Also, Print ads can never be as potentially brianwashing as their television counter parts for the following reasons:

The print ads are not moving. And we pay more attention to things which are static. For example, you will pay fine detail to a statue, painting etc. So a print ads mostly only highlights the benefit statement and the detail of the products.

Like if a company is keeping a 80% sale, then it's print version will see 80% written in huge fonts so that the first thing you will notice is that there is a 80% sale. The rest of the details are written normally.

And on the other hand, television ads uses the principles on which magician works. I mean no magic can be performed when everything is still. Thats why you will see magician talking a lot, creating humor and moving their hands all the time. This is done so that your attention is divided and you see what they want you to see.

To conclude with, I believe that an advertisements goal should be to inform people that a certain products exists and these are it's features and also consumers should take care that they check the facts before believing any advertisements blindly.
Advertising is tool used to communicate about the product and to pitch it in the consumer's mind in such a manner that it sells.I can call this a "persuasive form of communication".And correctly as mentioned above,there is alot of misleading and overdoing while brands are advertised.

Nowadays some brands have forgotten what the message n advertisements should be.Instead of talking about their brand,the whole message happens to be to contradict their rival brands.

Take the example of Sprite ads for Mountain Dew, The Pepsi- Cola ad wars and as rightly said by Arun, the FMCG brands get into it rather than other segment brands.But do they brainwash?

I choose to believe their method of persuasion may be different and does create clutter to confuse but not brainwash.

Advertising is an umbrella of so many modes and requires different mediums like paper,TV,radio and people as well to communicate the message.Its main aim is to woo the consumers to pick their brand over other choices available.

On a lighter note I think they might "brain-jam" you rather than "brain-wash" with sometimes mind boggling and brainless concepts.

Leo

It is previous saying that advertising is a form of brain washing. But now-a-days, it is not so because due to lack of time people hardly get any time to survey or spend on the new market or better product existing in the market. Advertising plays an important role in letting about the merits of the product especially among its competitors product. This helps in making right purchase of the product.

The other part of the same is brain washing. It is often true, that the frequent advertisement seen or shown in any media attracts your attention and makes us feel to buy the product irrespective of its features etc. This is nothing but the another form of brain washing which can be controlled by making or studing the features of the product it reflects.

People generally get attracted by advertisement making it to rule one's mind and it slows turns into a habit of brain washing towards a particular product.
The theme of the GD is whether advertisements brainwash the consumers Obviously, advertisement is a commercial activity aimed at motivating the consumers to buy product of a particular brand. I hope nobody will deny this reality. If so, the logical conclusion is that advertisements aim at brainwashing the consumers to buy a particular branded product in preference to others.

G. K. Ajmani Tax consultant
http://gkajmani-mystraythoughts.blogspot.com/

Well, Arun is right when he says that print ads are less likely to brainwash rather than television and TV ads.
My point is that there is a fine line between what IS and what SHOULD be. You are also right when you say that "an advertisements goal should be to inform people that a certain products exists and these are it's features". But, not all advertisements do that! Because it is a competitive world we live in and (UNFORTUNATELY) this competition can sometime get unhealthy. Even the ads which state the features do tend to exaggerate those features.
Say an advert for a "skin cream" states that it has fairness enhancers. That's enough. They don't have to go on to portray that the cream will make you whiter than snow in 7 days time blah blah...!! And, that you need to be fair to be successful!!
But yes - not ALL advertisements are aimed at brainwashing the people. But, even the few that are brainwashing, can have so many repercussions. That's because they choose the soft targets - skin colour, weight, beauty, health etc. are sensitive areas; these are the things that people are willing to try almost ANYthing for!
Manas could also be right when he says that nowadays people hardly get time to actually research the products, as a result of which advertising has more brainwashing potential of late.

https://www.mummepreneur.com/
Advertisements are the mirror of the product. Through advertisement the customer get know about the new products of various brands and also can know about the features n qualities of products.
It is no use covering the brainwashing object of advertisements by saying that these are informative. Objective information can be provided by independent bodies and not the advertisers of products. Print media may be less effective but in spirit this is no different. Consumers need to be cautious and not be misled by advertisers' claims.

G. K. Ajmani Tax consultant
http://gkajmani-mystraythoughts.blogspot.com/

You hit the nail in the coffin Kimberly. I think the cosmetics ads are the one that can be termed as misleading and almost to the point of brain washing. But I still don't think that they cab brainwash you completely. At the most they can compel you to try. And if you don't see the benefits, you will definitely switch.

And since we are talkin specifically of cosmetics, the companies aim that people buy their product once. They don't care if they dump it the second time. You may ask why a company is doing this? Well the indian cosmetic market is one of the huge market and it is still not tapped completely. The market is operating at only 27% of it's strength. So most of the cosmetic companies are looking to tap the market as of now.

The kind of ads you see now will stop after a few years when more market is tapped and it reaches a saturation point.


See the case of mobile phones now, just to tap the Indian market which is one of the largest, they went to as low as 1 paise per minute but since the market is now almost saturated, the rates have started to increase again. Tata Docomo has already said that new subscribers will have to pay 2 paise per second after one year and they have also increased the STD call and msg rates. many other telecom operators have done that in many circles and are planning to do that in many other circles too.

And yea, advertisement are meant to selling one's product but advertisement should be done subtly and should always be backed by the quality and features.

Consumers don't want to be sold to. Any attempt to luring customers into buying a not so good product will have serious repercussions in the future for the brand. Also we should keep in mind that with changing times, the way a advertisement should be communicated are also changing and companies should keep that in mind.
Advertisements are undoubtedly essential for the creation of awareness and promotion.As rightly mentioned by Shruti,there are cases like Dairy Milk,not only that, even Pepsi and Coco-Cola had to change their strategy of advertising when they were viewed harshly in the public eye.

The point of having a brand image heavily relies on the way it is advertised.I agree that it has a huge element that persuades the customer to an extremely large extent,our mind allows some advertisements to take control.We relate to the tunes,dance to the beats and also add the punchlines to the witty conversations we have.

But due to consumer awareness that is rising,people don't succumb that easily to what advertisements say these days,They tend to scrutinize and then decide.
Probably that's why I can say its brainwashing all together,but yes,it does have the power to persuade and if I may its rather a coercive persuasion. Which means,it has the capacity to alter you decisions.

Leo

Undoubtedly, the advertiser aims at building loyalty for particular brand. This is a glaring and undeniable fact. It is different that product is quality product and worth buying. It is different that the product is really good and suitable. But these do not affect the basic purpose of advertising, which is impress consumers' mind with particular brand. This is what means brainwashing.

G. K. Ajmani Tax consultant
http://gkajmani-mystraythoughts.blogspot.com/

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