Advertising discourages people from being different individuals and makes them want to be or look the same.

KEY TO IELTS WRITING TEST ON 27TH, OCTOBER, 2012

Advertising discourages people from being different individuals and makes them want to be or look the same. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

AGREE

- Appear often

- Be motivated to keep up with Joneses

DISAGREE

- Knowledge- based society

- Basic instincts of human beings are similar

- Being educated to follow different beliefs

- The power of products, not advertising

Advertisements appear ubiquitously. Some people think that their constant presence somehow clones our thinking while others believe that each person has a different set of belief and is hardly affected by these advertisements. I strongly disagree with the idea that advertisements make us be the same.

Psychologically speaking, when people see something too often, they are likely to be affected. As a result, they tend to buy products ingrained in their mind on television. However, in a knowledge-based society, people are more aware of the quality and real situation of products they are using. That internet provides them with different sources of information leads to people’s low possibility of being victimized by advertisements on television. Besides, with parents encouraging children to follow their inner desire in their educational method, individuals are not homogeneous in their dreams. Meanwhile, advertisements just focus on sales of products, and their core message is not to turn watchers into those having the same expectation.

Another reason in support of the former view is that when more people buy the same products, others are motivated to keep up with the Joneses. Indirectly, they become similar. That might be true if products gain higher popularity and reputation. Nevertheless, any good product, whether being advertised or not, is prevalently used by our community. Let’s take Google Mail as a typical example. Without much marketing strategies or televised messages, people still keep using this service and trust it for its high reliability and utility. For this reason, it is the power of the product, not advertising that spurs people. In addition, basically, even without the repetitive messages of advertising, we all desire for a better life with good house, career, services and lover. These fundamental instincts are inherent in our genes since birth, and advertising itself is only to emphasize these needs to appeal people. Equally important, the gap from the experience of watching ads to the idea of being affected in reality is far enough to blame advertising for homogenizing the society.

- keep up with the Joneses (idiom) : đua đòi