Society vs. Advertisements

The question: What came first the chicken or the egg? has sparked a lot of thought and consideration. How could the egg come first because a chicken would have to lay the egg, and how could the chicken come first because it had to have hatched out of an egg? Similar to this is the question: Does society emulate advertisements, or do advertisements emulate society? In response to this question, I would say that society and advertisements emulate one another in a sort of circle.

Society has a set of wants, needs, expectations, and standards that have been put into place over the years. Society began, however, with basic needs for survival such as food, water, and shelter. As new products were developed, advertising came into play. Advertisements created a false need. People began to believe that they needed a certain type of food, clothing, shelter, etc. in order to survive. Therefore, advertising was beginning to shape society’s wants and needs and began establishing these expectations and standards.

After seeing these advertisements promoting new products, new technology, and new body images society began to change and emulate advertisements. People believed they had to look like, act like, and possess the same things that people in the advertisements had. Society began to change in response to these advertisements. In response to this, advertisements had to change to attract and target their new and changing audiences and live up to society’s new expectations for new and better products.

I believe that society feeds off of advertisements and advertisements feed off of society. Society establishes standards and expectations and advertisements define what society wants and needs. For example people do not need cars, but society and advertisements make it seem like a person can not get anywhere without a car. Also, society and advertisements make it seem like a person can not live without a cell phone, whereas, in earlier years there were no telephones. Furthermore, women do not need make-up or cosmetics, but society suggests that women are ugly or unappealing without make-up and advertisements suggest women can look ten times better with make-up on. As a result of this, I would say that advertisements and society go hand in hand in a vicious circle and base their standards and expectations off of each other.