It used to be that the power of advertising was to make your business visible. However in the last few years it has developed into much more, something that is almost sinister in nature. The power of advertising now is multifaceted: it becomes a privileged discourse in a new symbolic environment which shapes consumption, as well as the form and content of media, politics, and thought and behavior. The power of advertising is in its ability to manipulate people, turning them into unconscious and addicted consumers, while they continue to deny that they could ever be affected by the messages of such positive brands.

So while thinking is shifting toward a deeper awareness of the customers' needs, preferences and buying behaviors (and their complete experience with the business that is the subject of the advertising), belief in the power of advertising is still on the increase. There is nothing wrong with advertising itself. The problem comes when the power of advertising is misused. I believe that is happening today. Advertising now deludes us into believing that unless we buy what is being advertised we are condemned to be lesser human beings.

Advertising is significant because, in consumer capitalism, individuals depend on it for meanings -- a source of social information embedded in commodities that mediate interpersonal relations and personal identity. Advertising should therefore be conceived as an important institution in our consumer society because it produces "patterned systems of meaning" which play a key role in individual socialization and social reproduction.

Advertising attempts to assure and assuage its audience and to promote the belief that individual commodity solutions are present for all problems. Advertising also permeates our minds through print ads (newspapers, magazines, flyers, posters), public displays (billboards, bus stops, train stations, signs of all sizes and colors), movie theater ads (pre movie commercials and product placements), vending machine facades, radio commercials, ads burned onto our clothing (t-shirts, shoes, hats), displays pasted on prominent buildings and sports arenas, and even an occasional blimp. Advertising is ubiquitous, and it's given too many a sense of entitlement beyond the reach of our budgets.

Because we've been bombarded with advertising for our entire lives, we've become used to it and this makes us receptive to short messages that insinuate themselves into our culture. Informed by sociological and historical accounts of how market relations erode traditional sources of meaning and anthropological insights into how material things perform social communication functions concerning social standing, identity, and lifestyle, Leiss, Kline, and Jhally have expanded the category of "information" within advertising to include not just functional product information, but social symbolic information as well. In these ways, advertising plays a key role in the transition to a new image culture, and thus in the transition from a discursive book/print culture to a figurative media culture.

We know that the power of advertising is limited if the work itself fails to deliver, but that principle only applies if people know they have an alternative. I may prefer my hamburger to be completely different from your preference but the power of advertising is such that I bet you a double cheeseburger with fries that the image conjured by the word "hamburger" is identical for us both as television, print and all the other visual media have bombarded us with one standard image of a sesame-topped bun filled with round meat patties, lettuce, tomato, onions and smothered in a variety of tomato ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard. Still I suppose if it has stuck in my mind that much, then the power of advertising is working.

Or is it? People are inundated with advertising today-every where they go. Yet in a recent survey a large percentage of the people questioned remembered the advertisements, but they couldn't tell the interviewer what the ad was about or which company the ad was for. This indicated that people are tuning out advertisements. Therefore to make advertising work again, there needs to be different thinking involved in the creation of the ad so that it stands out.

Two recent advertisements come to mind. In the first one an older lady driving a mobility scooter enters a supermarket. She drives around putting groceries in the basket fastened to the handle bars of her scooter. She goes down one isle and grabs a large jar of Miracle Whip and places it in the basket. Her scooter suddenly rears up onto its back wheels and squeals off down the isle with the front wheels in the air. The ad then says, "The tangy taste of Miracle Whip gives everything a boost." The ad is different and memorable.

In the second ad an attractive young lady stops her cart in the frozen food isle and opens a glass freezer door and takes out a McCain International frozen pizza. She turns from placing it in her shopping cart and sees an attractive young man from the country named on the package standing nearby. He smiles at her, so she gets another pizza from the freezer and puts it into her cart. When she looks up, the first young man has been joined by a second from the country named on the second pizza box. She picks a third International pizza from the freezer. This time it is a Greek pizza. When she looks up, a handsome young Greek has joined the other two. She gives all three a saucy smile and a wink and turns and pushes her cart away. In the meantime a less attractive overweight girl has been watching all of this. She immediately rushes to the freezer and grabs arm loads of McCain pizzas and proceeds to heap them into her cart. Again the ad is
different and memorable.

These kinds of ads will get the attention of the public and encourage the purchase of the products being advertised. Unfortunately a tremendous number of ads being used are neither different nor memorable; some are even silly or rude. All are a complete waste of advertising dollars for the companies using them. A good example of this is the "Eat Fresh" ads with the chubby actor with the slicked back hair and the handlebar moustache. Every person I have talked to about these ads advised me that they no longer purchase from Subway because they found the ads so revolting. My wife will probably never buy a product from Subway again because of these ads. Her comment was, "if they care so little about their customers that they would show those revolting ads, then they will never get another dollar out of me."

In summation, advertising is extremely powerful when it is different, memorable, tasteful and truthful. It will encourage the public to buy your products. However, if you use in your face, loud, rude or misleading advertising, then not only will you waste your advertising dollars, you are liable to be signing the death sentence for your business. Furthermore, advertisements are for selling products, they should not be used for political purposes or to try and bend society into a different direction. If the advertisers wish to do this, perhaps they should run for political office and leave advertising to the people who wish to sell products.

Gilbert Griffiths helped thousands of people during a professional career that spanned more than 39 years. He learned the Ultimate Lifestyle Secrets of the many successful people he dealt with. If you would like to learn these Ultimate Lifestyle Secrets go to http://www.rockettosuccess.com and sign up for his FREE newsletter. While there, read his blog for more exciting free information.