Who
are you voting for in the 2000 Presidential election? Is political
advertising driving you nuts? Interestingly, many of us are influenced
by such advertising, although we'd like to claim we're not. Most
of us don't know the candidates personally, so we have to rely on
the information gained from the media. Political advertising has
grown tremendously through the years, and is designed specifically
to influence your voting decisions.
As
with any product or service, great care is taken to create ads that
make you believe certain things. Video technology can enhance or
detract from a candidate, the addition of music has emotive powers
making recipients of the message feel a certain way, and even the
addition of graphical elements can add punch to a candidate's message.
Advertising is influential. We are influenced.
We're in denial (big time) if we believe we're immune. Political
advertising is just one example out of the hundreds of thousands
of influential ads we're faced with daily. Determining which ones
influence you and which ones influence me is the real question.
Advertising
is diffused throughout our lives. We can't avoid it.
It surrounds us and beckons us. Every company every
where is seeking to convince us to buy their product because
of x, y and z. Admittedly, this is sometimes a bad
thing, because of the annoyance factor. However, it is a good thing
if you're in the market for a particular product and have advertising
at your disposal to help you make your purchase decision. This is
where our innate ability to self-select advertising comes into play.
With the clutter of advertising around us, we choose (subconsciously
or not) which ones to pay attention to and which ones to ignore.
Undeniably,
advertising is influential and pervasive. It is a conduit,
which supplies us with daily doses of information, ideas, solutions
and entertainment.
