It doesn’t help to blame advertising for many of the world’s problems. It is more useful to understand the techniques used to change people’s behavior. Advertising researchers study people’s reactions to different messages. The researchers look for factors that cause people to act in a certain way. For example, in a study of how children got their parents to buy them things, researchers watched children fight with their parents. This was an opportunity to learn how to make advertising more successful.
Some techniques are used to bring particular messages to particular groups. An example of this is the suggestions we see online that promote books similar to ones we have already bought. Other techniques bring messages to the mass of the population. For many years, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) organized a big campaign in North America to prevent people from drinking and driving. They used print and television ads to get their message across. As a result, drunk driving dropped in many American states. Some of these ads were so good they won awards.
Advertising is a communication resource. It can be put to good use to benefit society or used to bring harm or hurt. It just depends on the people using it.