Is Advertising good for Society?

Advertising is good for society because I believe that advertisements are informative for consumers on what they should know about stuff. After reading both John Calfee and Dinyar Godrej’s opinion and answer to the question, is advertising good for society, They made a few interesting points. Calfee’s main focus was how consumers benefit from ads and how they can learn about certain important issues. Godrej’s main point was that advertisements basically cause anxiety towards consumers because they stress on the idea that if they don’t buy the products shown in ads, they are making a huge mistake. Something that stood out after reading this issue is that Calfee had many more facts, information, and examples in why advertising is good for society and Godrej had only three main points. One of Calfee’s main ideas that I agree with is that individuals can learn about important issues in the world through ads and the example that he used repeatedly is the issue of health. Calfee stated that “advertising is a tool for communicating information,” and what better way to inform the public on a health issue then through advertisements. The example that Calfee used is how the Kellogg Corporation, a cereal brand did a campaign with the National Cancer Institute that focused on the idea that by eating Kellogg bran cereal people can prevent cancer because according to the NCI, fiber prevents cancer, and Kellogg’s cereal only has nine grams of fiber per serving. I thought this was very interesting because one, this ad was done over twenty years ago and Kellogg cereal still mentions how they have less fiber then other cereal brands, and secondly, the ad showed that cancer is a serious issue in the world, and by doing so (eating fiber) people can prevent cancer. The only main point that I found interesting from Godrej’s research is the idea of how advertisements make us question our choices when buying a certain product or before making certain decisions in our lives. Overall, Godjej made a good point by saying that advertisements can make consumers indecisive when buying a product, but on the other end, advertisements could also point us in the right direction in buying the right product for ourselves.