Controvercial Television Advertising

CONTROVERCIAL TELEVISION ADVERTISING

Today's advertising companies represent themselves and their product to society with the use of sex, drugs and alcohol potentially posing a thereat to innocent adolescent minds. All over the world people watch television for purposes of education, entertainment and to alleviate boredom. So as you can tell it's a part of our daily lives. What's to be done when during a break form your favorite TV show you see a commercial about a man who needs to use sexual enhancement drugs so that he has more confidence in himself or a women's exposed breasts during half time at a foot ball game on national television.

Sports icons and entertainers have become a critical part of today's advertising companies marketing strategy. Often, they promote products using profanity, drug abuse and sex in more ways than one. By exploiting famous people in day time television advertisements the target market has expanded to cover all ages, not just adult audiences. Everyone looks up to these people on a daily basis, Whether it be a young boy who watches football to improve his game or a young girl who watches her favorite pop star dance to her favorite song.

The most popular TV shows out there today are posing a major threat to today's youth. NBC's channel four has aired a new show called Nip Tuck, a show that graphically depicts sex, plastic surgery and illegal drug-taking at 9pm every Tuesday (Simms, Jane (3/18/04) Double Standards: Marketing (UK).) This type of advertising on television has gone unpunished for many years and has only grown stronger with each viewer, only opening the door for other shows like Sex in the City where women make oral sex a part of their daily routine a big hit in the television industry.

Day time television is not the only place where you can find this type of controversial advertising. In 2004, the Super Bowl was a very exciting and anticipated event. Today it is remembered as the year Janet Jackson lost her top and the many commercials that caught the attention of millions of viewers all over the world that consisted of CBS's lineup featuring a dog biting a man's crotch, a football player with toilet paper stuck to his be hind, a flatulent Clydesdale, and a special spot for erectile-dysfunction drugs aired that day. (Bechtel, Mark (2/7/2005) Sunday Best: Sports Illustrated Vol.102.)

The tobacco industry is also another one of the major companies that promote a product to the wrong audience.

One Campaign in particular, in the city of Quebec called the De Facto campaign showed a teenage girl