An Opinion Essay: Is Advertising Still Effective?

Note from the author: the following is an IELTS practice essay that doesn’t represent the personal opinions of the author.

Some people say that advertising is extremely successful at persuading us to buy things. Other people think that advertising is so common that we no longer pay attention to it. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Regarding the topic of whether advertising is effective, there are mixed opinions. While some believe that advertising is successful at persuading consumers to buy things, I believe that it has become so widespread that we no longer pay attention to it.

On the one hand, advertising can be useful.

There were very successful advertisers who took over the world by storm. Take Nike’s ad campaign ‘Just Do It’. The brainchild of advertising legend Dan Wieden, the slogan was debuted in 1988. Back then, Nike was already a successful sports brand, however, they were still quite small. With inspiration from a murderer’s last words ‘let’s do it’, Nike introduced their new tagline. It caught on, and it gave Nike the boost to become a brand not only for professional athletes, but ordinary consumers as well. Such advertisements have no doubt gave rise to iconic brand names and changed the entire world.

On the other hand, there are an increasing amount of advertisements nowadays, and there is a fundamental difference between these new ads and that of Nike and other successful businesses: They’re becoming sloppy.

For starters, a lot of the ads we see nowadays are from small businesses. These businesses usually don’t have large advertising budgets, so they make unprofessional ads indistinguishable from others.

In addition, misleading ads are becoming more widespread. Most ads try to advertise themselves as ‘unique’ in someway, when they actually don’t have much difference from the competition or even worse sell identical products from the same manufacturers.

From the advertiser’s perspective, it’s in their interest to hopefully get more buyers. However, the unethical behavior of these businesses will inevitably erode consumer trust in the market. Even trustworthy brands will be overshadowed by the fatigue felt by consumers over ads.

In conclusion, although good advertising can indeed have a resonating impact, the commonness and sloppiness of ads has led to the phenomenon of consumers paying less attention to ads overall.