Advertisements

The world of advertisement and commercialization are ruling over the consumers. With development and booming industries, the advertisements have become really popular. According to the article, Anthropological Perspectives on Contemporary Human Problems by John H. Bodley, “The entire world is now driven by a dominant cultural process that can be called commercialization”. The perception of what is good and what is bad is highly influenced by different kinds of advertisements.
The advertisements are published everywhere. If you open a magazine its there, if you read newspaper its there, if you visit a website its there and if you watch television its there. The advertisement companies are doing a great job to sell their products as they know the right technique to influence people. For instance, advertisements for food are represented in such a way that makes people want to eat it. The pictures of food shown in the covers look very delicious and appetizing but in real they do not look the same. The advertisements of hard drinks represent people having good time and socializing while the advertisements of soda drinks shows the consumption of their products to be relaxing and refreshing and the advertisements of energy drinks and coffee represents increase in performance. They are shown be natural and good for health giving the titles like fat free or sugar free. The food companies also make their products look good, cool and fun by making other food products look bad and unhealthy.
In Nepal, I do not know how exactly the advertisements started but I guess they learned it from the advertisements of other countries. We didn't use to have so much advertisements in TV, radio or magazines but nowadays there are commercials everywhere. In old times, the messages were announced by blowing trumpets, banging drums and delivering the message but nowadays technology and media have consumed us so much that we do not practice such traditions anymore. When I was young the advertisements in the televisions easily attracted me. The advertisements of Kellogg's cornflakes had secret prize in their packs so I would ask my parents to buy these cereals so that I could get the free gifts. If my favorite actor was promoting certain products I would want to use them too. The advertisements of cup noodles which had catchy songs made eating such noodles so cool that it made me buy them. Because of the such crafty advertisements I started preferring canned and packed foods over home cooked foods. Only later I realized how these packaged foods are not really good as it looks or are represented. I was easily deceived by the appealing advertisements but now I know how commercialization works with consumers.
We should be aware of the real things that we are buying and not what they represent. It is easy to believe them and choose the particular item that catches our eye but we shouldn't choose and trust what is shown to us. It is up to us to decide what we want and we shouldn't be tricked by these advertisements.