How Important Is Advertising for You?

How important is advertising for you?

In order to express the importance of advertising for me, on a personal level, I have to first define advertising. Advertising is not merely the communication of information to sell products. And it is not advertising's sole role to sell something. Advertising's objective, as defined by George Felton, author of "Advertising: Concept and Copy," is to get the word out that you have something exciting to offer. Simply put, advertising is promotion.

As a photographer, as well as a college student, it is important for me to use social networking sites to promote my works as well as communicate and get in touch with potential models and clients. The act of promoting myself and my work on different social networking sites is a form of simple advertising. Although I'm not directly selling my works, I put and post them out there for everyone to see. This is my way of getting commissions and broadening my connections. My work is my product. I am my brand. The whole world is my client.

In present times, personal branding is very important. How we present ourselves to the public and to the society matters very much. It is through advertising and promotion that we make our own personal brand. The way we dress, act, and even the way we talk, is part of promoting ourselves to the society. Advertising and promoting myself is one of my best means to an end and this is why advertising is so important for me.

On a broader level, advertising has an important role on a country's economy, society and culture. Advertising affects everyone both directly and indirectly.

Advertising has a positive impact on the economy because it stimulates demand for products and services, strengthening the economy by promoting the sale of goods and services. It can also help sell new products, enabling the market to develop newer products. By stimulating the development of new products, advertising helps increase competition. And increased competition ultimately leads to lower prices, thereby benefiting consumers and the economy as a whole.

Advertising has a major social impact by helping sustain mass communications media and making them relatively inexpensive, if not free, to the public. Newspapers, magazines, radio and broadcast television all receive their primary income from advertising. Without advertising, many of these forms of mass communication might not exist to the extent that they do today, or they might be considerably expensive, offer less variety, or even be subject to government control.

At the same time, however, advertising is a double edged sword because it plays such a major economic role; it may exercise undue influence on the news media and thereby restrain the free flow of information in a free society.

Advertising also affects cultural values.