October 29 - November 4 Question 3

The topic that I’ve decided to write about for this week is the topic of Advertising and the Media. The reason I choose this topic is because the two are so closely related that we don’t even know we’re being advertised to when we watch TV. There are three points to advertising, “to create product awareness, to inform consumers about a product or service, and to motivate customer demand for the product.” Creating product awareness is very important because just due to logic, if the product is not known, nobody will buy it. To inform consumers about a product or service is important because people might know the name of the product, but not truly know what it does. For example, the product Hydrocortisone has a long name and without a proper explanation, nobody would know what it does. Hydrocortisone is a very strong drug that helps people with itch such as a bug bite or even Eczema [a skin condition]. One would never have known this without the proper explanation. Motivating customers to buy the product is a technique that is used all the time. For example, the Gianst winning the World Series was an automatic income boost for sports stores such as the Giant’s Dugout or Sports Authority. “If you’re a real fan, then you need these shirts or this jersey.” All of these are part of Advertising and Media.