Swimming in Ads

In today’s society we are surrounded by advertisements.  They’re on television, in magazines, on billboards, and in video games.  I went on a twenty-four hour quest to see what ads I would be subjected to in that period of time. 

Usually within the first couple hours of my day, I avoid ads.  I don’t listen to the radio, watch any television, and when I’m driving in the morning, my focus is on the road due to the traffic.  Even when I went to class, I wasn’t subjected to any ads until I went to my Desktop Publishing class.  Every morning before the start of the class I log on to Facebook.  The moment I logged on I was faced a variety of ads (many advertising anime and video games).  It’s impressive to see the methods that advertisers taking to reach their target audience.  That’s definitely a plus side to the internet (even though it might not seem that way to most people).  After that class, I logged on to Walmart.com to order a new Nintendo 3DS.  There were ads from toys all the way to gardening equipment.  I quickly made my order, used my employee discount card, and logged off. 

Once both of my classes for the day ended, I got in the car and drove to Walmart.  I passed a sign on the side of the road advertising a junk removal service.  It was placed by an intersection so when the light turns red, people are more likely to see the ad.  I continued to drive down route 222 and passed a couple billboard ads.  One of them was advertising a health center that displayed a message with highlighted words that said “We Heal U.”

I finally arrived at Walmart to be greeted by monitors displaying ads for various in-store products.  Even though I’m currently taking care of a house alone, I probably wouldn’t buy any of the products they advertised.  Granted, those products aren’t being advertised to me, they’re most likely being advertised to women who are doing the family shopping. 

I ended my day by going on Xbox Live to view more ads on the dashboard advertising specials on games.  I also viewed many ads on Hulu Plus mainly for the X Factor and the new Fox series, Touch. 

It’s hard to avoid ads since we are around them all day.  I feel that it’s become so ingrained in our culture that some people don’t realize that they’re there.  At the end of the day, all we can do is learn to live with them because they aren’t going away.