POLITICS

Politics

Politics

Television advertising has been a popular medium for large retailers ever since the TV first began to appear in living rooms. With the arrival of cable television came lowered production costs and the opportunity to reach smaller, more targeted markets, making it a viable option for small to medium-size businesses as well(Stelter 2009 ).

To create an effective television ad, it's first necessary to have a good script that highlights a strong offer. Ads must also be effectively produced, and it's for this reason that it's often better to enlist the services of an advertising agency, which can help you create an entire campaign(Michael, 2006).

Some of the advantages to advertising your small business on television include the following:

* TV reaches a much larger audience than local newspapers and radio stations, and it does so during a short period of time.

* It reaches viewers when they're the most attentive.

* It allows you to convey your message with sight, sound, and motion, which can give your business, product, or service instant credibility.

* It gives you an opportunity to be creative and attach a personality to your business, which can be particularly effective for small businesses that rely on repeat customers.

While it is obvious to many that political advertisements endorsing one candidate or another during an election are biased and meant to influence a person's opinions about the candidate in question, it is not clear to everyone that the advertising mentality has changed the way in which the entire political process is run (Wahlgren 2004 ). Television ads are merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the political process. Everything in a campaign, from the candidate him or herself on down to policies and party platforms, are all dependent on the "selling-it" mentality (Wyckoff 2008 ).

Politicians and their campaign managers know that they must appeal to the general public as a product does to a consumer, and so today candidates who speak eloquently, dress well, interact well with public figures, and adapt well to public life and attention are elected to office, sometimes over rivals who would have been more morally upright, more well-rounded, and better suited to the post(Wahlgren 2004 ). For example, many citizens voting in the current election will be voting for one candidate or another depending on how that candidate has presented himself in the public spotlight.

Obama for example speaks much more eloquently and with more confidence than McCain, even though McCain has much more experience in the political spotlight than Obama.

This mass promotion of consumer goods, from politics on down to television commercials, has dramatically changed the way in which Americans live their daily lives and run this great experiment in democracy we call the United States of America. Americans have become consumers at every level. “As the wealthiest five percent of the world's population, Americans consume twenty-four percent of the world's resources” (Ehrlich).

Americans consume more than any other nation, mostly because America is a "throw-away" society(Eugene, ...