Question

Today, the high sales of popular consumer goods reflect the power of advertising and not the real needs of the society in which they are sold. To what extent do you agree?

Model Answer

In modern society, advertising is displayed everywhere from the most massive billboards to the tiniest electronic device. As a result, there is some concern that advertising may encourage people to buy things that they do not really need. Personally speaking, I do not believe that advertising is the main reason people are buying more products than in the past.

Advertising clearly has some impact on what we buy or else companies would not spend so much money on marketing. However, I would argue that it only affects the choice of product and not the decision to buy something. For example, many computer companies ran expensive advertising campaigns during the pandemic, so you might suppose that this caused the increase in sales around that time. The actual reason, however, was that people needed computers to work from home. The advertising only helped people choose between competing brands.

If advertising is not to blame, why then is consumer spending on the rise? One reason is an increase in people's spending power. Many items are now mass produced and can therefore be bought more cheaply than before. As consumer goods are so cheap, people can afford to buy more superfluous things. Many of these goods are often discarded relatively quickly. It is true that these items do not reflect the needs of society, but they are bought because of their price rather than as a result of advertising.

In conclusion, I do not think advertising is the main reason for the rise in consumer spending. I think a more important factor is an increasingly throw-away culture brought on by lower prices.

(270 words)