So I've been asking myself this since I saw many alcohol commercials at TV and Youtube ads which essentially lure people into buying and consuming alcohol, but those commercials don't actually have any warning like "Alcohol is dangerous; drink responsibly" or "Alcohol is prohibited for people under 21/18." which makes me raise a lot of concern since lacking either one of these or both is seriously dangerous for kids who are very curious in their puberty phase. Of course the answer is quite frank, but I just want to hear out your opinions concerning this.
The advertisements are there because they want your money. Plain and simple. It's not about sobriety and a healthy living. It is about glamorizing alcohol and tobacco and getting you the consumer to bite into the hype. It was never about warning about the dangers of their product.
I don't think the question should be are they influencing people, I think the question should be by how much are they influencing people. There's no doubt in my mind that the biggest influence on people will be the TV and internet, any advertising or marketing campaign for that matter. While people might be more aware these days of how harmful certain things are, they will always get drawn in by a well devised marketing strategy.
Beside advertisements, Most of the TV shows these days make Alcohol and Weed look good in a way that attracts teenagers. I watch many TV shows and I can say 90 percent of them are bad for kids.
When you are on your phone or on the Internet your brain is releasing chemicals that make you feel pleasure. You get the se release from drugs and alcohol. so yes the Internet can trigger you, but more importantly children are receiving this release when using smart phones. The question is, what will happen when kids that are addicted to technology try drugs or alcohol?
@JoshPosh summed it up perfectly -- a lot of these companies just want to make the use of alcohol or tobacco seem as glamorous as possible in order to get you sucked in to buy their product. I feel like there's a lot of movies out there too which seem to make drug or excessive alcohol use seem "cool" (I use that term lightly, because I know that's not how they should be perceived!) but I feel like if you're young and impressionable (which no doubt we all were at some point) then it's easy to think that these celebrities seem mature and sophisticated by using drugs. Sad but true.
Yes, companies couldn't care less about those poor people trying to stay sober! All they want is to sell their alcohol, they don't care who they might be destroying or how many lives they will indirectly destroy. It's all about glamorizing the act of drinking and getting drunk, they do it in the movies very often, even more during the 90's. I have seen a decrease in that trend lately, at least in Hollywood, now the idolizing of alcohol is more discrete, but it's still there. On regular TV the story is different, we keep seeing more and more ads trying to make drinks like whiskey and vodka look like something very refined and successful people drink.
Now the internet is the main tool companies use to sell their product, whether we want it or not we end up seeing their ads, specially if we use sites like YouTube. Now those annoying ads have managed to be everywhere, I remember when sites like YouTube didn't force you to sit though those ads while watching videos. Now that is how it is. Of course you can skip them after 10 seconds, but by the time you do that you have already watched a big art of that ad.
Alcohol companies don't care about who drinks their products as long as their making money but it is no different than any other company such as cigarets and lottery. These are also very common addictions and the companies don't care who who uses it as long as there is a cash flow.
I don't think the advertisements for alcoholic products are bad, since they are there to just "refresh" the image of the brand. The big problem here is the people they spend their time with, since friends can sometimes influence you to do certain things that are not really healthy. The internet can influence people, yes, but not really through advertisements.
The purpose of a commercial is to get people to take action and therefore a commercial for alcohol will appeal to people to buy it. Showing warnings such as alcohol is a dangerous substance will have the opposite effect of what the advertisers want. There is usually a warning though that alcohol must be consumed responsibly.
Most of the companies that sell these products do not really care about the person that will be buying their products and yes they are creating these commercials so that they will be able to get people to buy these things. I do not think they really care about the amount of damage that they may be causing to the people that they are enticing to buy these things.
Totally agree with all the posted above. Everywhere you look, they're advertising and glorifying alcohol, drugs, bad manners, acting dumb and disrespectful, promiscuity, crime, killing, being gross, every bad thing you could think of. Every comedy I've watched in the last couple of years always has someone puking, farting, getting drunk, getting high, having sex, homosexual references or someone sitting on a toilet with explosive diarrhea. And still some people wonder what hapenned to our moral values. Well, there's your answer. Kids watch this crap and absorb it like a sponge.
Companies go to great lengths to advertise their products, and to make them appear as appealing and attractive as possible. Even though I haven't been drinking for a long time now, and I am not interested in ever taking it up again, I have been lured by certain highly original alcohol advertisements to at least pay attention to their product. One commercial that I saw recently was so intriguing that I started wondering about the taste of the drink they were advertising. So, these tactics of brainwashing must never be underestimated.
Advertising influences young minds as much as adults if not more. Best thing to do is turn the TV off or watch what programs and ads your children see. Filter the internet connection and let them watch educational shows on TV. It isn't perfect but it is something.
I am not sure where you are but it is law in the UK that alcohol adverts have a warning on them. I was never influenced by any adverts to drink as a teenager. I got drunk once and I liked how it felt (that day, not the next) so I kept doing it.
In my opinion young minds get attracted too much to these alcoholic advertisements. In our streets or road sides, there are many advertisement boards of these alchol that gives bad habit to teenager. This is the main reason that our young youth goes to this addiction.
Well, the commercials sure do make it look glamorous to drink, don't they? The most interesting man in the world does it, after all. I'm not sure exactly how much it actually influences people. I mean, I already casually drink so I might see a drink and think hmm, that looks good. But a non-drinker? I would hope that someone who isn't normally inclined to drink doesn't see a guy in a chair talking about beer and think "gotta get some of that later". But I know that people are impressionable and influenced by advertising.
The companies are going to glorify and praise their products because it's their livelihood and that's how they make their money. I think that they could care less about who buys their product, even though you sometimes see these companies do different things to try to persuade people to be responsible, I think it's just to save face.
Yes, those advertisements on TV, internet and other media are influencing people. I do not like seeing commercials about an alcoholic drink that portraying that drinking is a part of life by saying there are reasons to celebrate daily as if saying that it is okay to drink daily, then afterwards the "drink moderately" after the commercial is to small and just flashed for a second.