Poverty is Profitable
Sandra Vanhooser - Monday, August 31, 2009
It is interesting to see, in almost a depressing way,
the adaptation of advertisements in impoverished areas. Billboards, posters, and banners take a
completely different feel and look, molding to their environment in an
effective way, but a way that is counter-productive to the culture. As a designer, one understands the importance
of reaching the target market, but on the ethical plane, the amount of
alcoholic advertisements directed towards the tired, lonely, and poor is, to
say the least, a bit disturbing.
Within the financially-stricken locales of any major city, there spawns like rats the mass amounts of advertisements featuring every legal spirit and drug. The target market of the poor and the struggling flock to their escapes due to the constant bombardment of the surrounding ads. It is hard to blame the companies that are simply doing effective advertising, and it is not simply under the fault of lack of self control. The observation made simply points out the guilty pleasures we all desire may not be necessarily from our own consciousness but subliminally engrained into us by the advertisements designed for our cultural environment. No one can say it is bad or good, but merely an issue that in the eyes of ethics and production seems more harmful than efficient.
But it is important to note that targeting a market effectively is not wrong by any means. Is it pointing out a weakness or simply providing a need or want? Advertising tries to convince the viewer the significance of their product, but it also likes to stick to the locations that already consider their product significant. Wrong or right on opinion, the observation is apparent in advertising.
Within the financially-stricken locales of any major city, there spawns like rats the mass amounts of advertisements featuring every legal spirit and drug. The target market of the poor and the struggling flock to their escapes due to the constant bombardment of the surrounding ads. It is hard to blame the companies that are simply doing effective advertising, and it is not simply under the fault of lack of self control. The observation made simply points out the guilty pleasures we all desire may not be necessarily from our own consciousness but subliminally engrained into us by the advertisements designed for our cultural environment. No one can say it is bad or good, but merely an issue that in the eyes of ethics and production seems more harmful than efficient.
But it is important to note that targeting a market effectively is not wrong by any means. Is it pointing out a weakness or simply providing a need or want? Advertising tries to convince the viewer the significance of their product, but it also likes to stick to the locations that already consider their product significant. Wrong or right on opinion, the observation is apparent in advertising.
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