Question: Should prescription drugs be advertised directly to consumers?

Patients will be better informed than under the status quo Advertising prescription drugs enables patients to learn, and to request innovation faster in order to benefit from the new drugs that health personnel still have not gotten used to. Advertising increases consumer awareness of drugs, which makes consumers more likely to take appropriate medication. The drugs market is complex and so advertising can help explain the differences between treatments, for example between contraceptive pills intended to reduce period pain, period flow and those simply to prevent pregnancy. Advertising under current rules is used to inform patients of new drugs which may be appropriate for conditions which they suffer from (such as recent asthma drugs which reduce the frequency of attacks), but which their doctor might overlook or not have the time to crosscheck against her list of patients.[1] 56% of AMA general practitioners believed that direct-to-consumer advertising had prompted some of their patients to seek treatment for a condition which would have otherwise been neglected.[2] If a patient has taken the time to actively consider a particular drug and then visits their doctor, whether they are prescribed it or not, they are building up a positive relationship with their doctor and are more likely to continue to take an active interest in their health. Further on, in states where there is no direct to consumer advertising but there is advertising to doctors, patients are disadvantaged because it is in the interest for private medical insurance firms or national health services to keep information about expensive new drugs from patients. In the UK it was because of cost that the Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) refused to allow the prescription of Herceptin, a drug which US studies have shown reduces the damage done by breast cancer. Ultimately pressure from Roche, the drug’s manufacturer and from patients resulted in the drug being authorized for use, but the process was much faster in the US where Roche could run advertisements alerting consumers to the potential benefits of Herceptin, and thereby immediately giving patients access to a similar level of information as their doctors and allowing them to push for its authorization.   [1] Patient View – for improving patient care, Information on prescription medicines: the views of EU-based patient groups, http://www.patient-view.com/projects4.htm, accessed 08/07/2011 [2] Lyles A., Direct Marketing of Pharmaceuticals to Consumers, Annual Review of Public Health, published May 2002,  http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.23.100901.140537, accessed 08/08/2011

Patients will be better informed than under the status quo Many ads don't include enough information on how well drugs work. For example, Lunesta is advertised by a moth floating through a bedroom window, above a peacefully sleeping person. Actually, Lunesta helps patients sleep 15 minutes faster after six months of treatment and gives 37 minutes more sleep per night. The Majority of ads are based on emotional appeals, but few include causes of the condition, risk factors, or important lifestyle changes. In a study of 38 pharmaceutical advertisements researchers found that 82 percent made a factual claim and 86 percent made rational arguments for product use. Only 26 percent described condition causes, risk factors, or prevalence.[1] Thus not giving the patients balanced information that would make them aware, that taking one of the pills is not a magic solution to their problem. Actually, according to a study conducted in the US and New Zealand, patients requested prescriptions in 12% of surveyed visits. Of these requests, 42% were for products advertised to consumers and consumers could not recall more than 4 different products of medicine.[2] This proves that the decisions made by the patients are not more informed and mainly only pressure to the advertised drugs.  [1] Creating Demand for Prescription Drugs: A Content Analysis of Television Direct-to-Consumer Advertising. Ann Fam Med. 2007 January; 5(1): 6–13.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1783924/ [2] Mintzes B. and co-workers, Influence of direct to consumer pharmaceutical advertising and patients' requests on prescribing decisions: two site cross sectional survey, BMJ 2002,  http://www.bmj.com/content/324/7332/278.full.pdf, accessed 08/01/2011

allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers Advertising will enable patients to get better treatment earlier in their illnesses

Advertising puts pressure on doctors to prescribe inappropriate drugs to their patients If a patient sees a drug that is inappropriate for him, and asks their doctor for it, if his doctor does not prescribe it, then he may ignore his doctor and seek a second or third opinion. In private health care systems it is likely that economic pressure will result in a doctor eventually agreeing to the patient’s demand. In nationalized health services ‘pester power’ has resulted in doctors giving in to patients in the past rather than arguing with them (seen, for example, in the massive over-prescribing of antibiotics by British general practitioners for viral infections against which they are ineffective). If the doctor prescribes another drug (perhaps a cheaper generic version), even if it is chemically identical to the branded and advertised drug, the reverse-placebo effect may result in the drug being less effective than it should be, because the patient believes it is a weaker treatment. The patient may also be less willing to complete the prescription, or to visit that doctor again, thereby undermining the doctor-patient relationship.[1] Prescription medicines are fundamentally complex and dangerous, which is why they require a prescription by a qualified doctor. It is not helpful to have a patient who lacks the decade of medical training a GP has self-diagnosing on the basis of an advert.   [1] FDA: Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs:Looking Back, Looking Forward, published October 2005,  www.fda.gov/downloads/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/CDER/ucm095993.ppt, accessed 08/07/2011

Advertising will enable patients to get better treatment earlier in their illnesses This leads to patients requesting drugs they do not need and in many cases are even harmful to them. The prescription drugs are very different from freely available drugs. They often treat serious diseases, and so advertising those should target mainly people that are very ill and especially vulnerable. On the other hand, with direct-to-consumer advertising, many people who do not have a serious disease become convinced that they need the prescription drug, because the advertisements scare them. Because of such advertisement, in the U.S. there was a rapid widespread exposure to dangerous drugs before risks were fully recognized, as with troglitazone (Rezulin) for diabetes and cisapride (Propulsid) for nighttime heartburn. Causing people to become more ill instead of healthier, because this leads to a higher “self-diagnosing”. [1] [1] Health Information Action, Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising The European Commission’s Proposals for Legislative Change, September 2011, http://www.haiweb.org/campaign/DTCA/BMintzes_en.pdf, accessed 08/07/2011

allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers Patients will be better informed than under the status quo

allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers Advertisements for prescription drugs are not significantly different from any other advertisement

allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers Advertising puts pressure on doctors to prescribe inappropriate drugs to their patients

Advertisements for prescription drugs are not significantly different from any other advertisement Advertising serves an important purpose by informing the public about a specific product. It is also regulated from manipulation, and therefore deserves no special restrictions; these same restrictions and watchdogs would be in place if advertising of drugs were allowed to make sure that no drug is misrepresented. We trust consumers to view adverts with a level of skepticism and we know that they form only one part of the research that goes into, say, buying a car. Drug companies have become more open in recent years. For instance, GSK now publishes the results of all their drug trials (including the ones that fail) online and there are plenty of other sources of information on drugs available. A drug that remains unused is a drug that is helping nobody; adverts are simply a reasonable way for drug companies to help consumers find out about their products within a safe and highly regulated environment[1]. When the first discussion in the European Parliament was started, regarding the advertisement of pharmaceuticals, the pharmaceutical industry specifically pointed out the anomaly that exists: “Specific laws stood in the way of it communicating with patients over its products, even when others could. Presumably, this meant information was communicated by the media about new medicines. In this regard, the restrictions on the pharma industry contrast with the freedom enjoyed by manufacturers of vitamins and herbal remedies, who routinely advertise products to patients.”[2] This shows that it is unjust to make any differences between the companies.   [1] Debate: Should Drug Companies be allowed to advertise prescriptions direct to the public. http://toostep.com/debate/should-drugs-companies-be-allowed-to-advertise-prescription [2] Jessop N., Will DTC Advertising appear in Europe ?, published 01/07/2011,  http://pharmtech.findpharma.com/pharmtech/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=702161, accessed 07/29/2011

Advertising puts pressure on doctors to prescribe inappropriate drugs to their patients The majority of products that are advertised treat currently under-treated conditions. Drugs dealing with diseases such as depression, diabetes, and high cholesterol are some of the most frequently advertised. These advertisements can help inform viewers about their conditions, and prompt visits to physicians, who can help treat the problem early on.  Additionally, informed citizens are good for society, as physicians do not always recommend necessary or helpful drugs. In the status quo, patients do not visit their doctors often enough to be diagnosed. Only approximately half the patients in America get beta blockers after a heart attack. Clearly, an advertisement for beta blockers would be informational, rather than harmful.

allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers Adverts generate profit. Profit funds research into improved drugs

In Canada drug companies should not be allowed 2 advertise prescription drugs directly to public The power of the media broadcast is astronomical, and I believe there is an adversarial element put int the doctor/patient relationship when the drug companies advertise prescription drugs directly to the "ill-informed" pubic.

Advertisements for prescription drugs are not significantly different from any other advertisement Advertising does not attempt to tell the truth, but to give a biased view of a product. Companies spend millions of dollars a year on advertising, and would not do so if there were no return on this investment. While purchasing a particular brand of cola on the basis of an advert might not be disastrous for the consumer, using an inappropriate drug could be. Drugs companies have also shown their willingness to abuse their advertising rights. For instance the FDA has recently had to insist that the possible side effects of drugs must be listed as an integral part of TV advertisements, because advertisements were being produced in which the list of side effects was read at too fast a pace to be understood. It is thus understandable that in a survey soon after the 1997 regulations on direct to consumer advertising, 80% of American Medical Association (AMA) General Practitioners (GPs) thought it was not a good idea and undermined their role.[1] [1] FDA: Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs:Looking Back, Looking Forward, published October 2005,  www.fda.gov/downloads/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/CDER/ucm095993.ppt, accessed 08/07/2011

Creating a mentality of illness Advertising to patients promotes a ‘pill for every ill’ mentality as the drug industry seeks to ‘create’ new markets for its drugs by convincing patients that a pill can solve their problems. This leads both to greater hypochondria and to self-diagnosis of normal conditions as medical ones. For instance in October 2001, GSK ran advertisements for Paxil in the New York Times, claiming the drug would solve chronic anxiety. These advertisements came at a time when the events of 9/11—rather than a medical condition—were probably to blame for New Yorkers’ stress. The FDA declared in a 1999 study that fewer than one in four new drugs has any therapeutic value and the medical community now accepts that prevention through lifestyle choices is often the best way to tackle disease (for instance, rather than seeking a weight-loss or diabetes wonder-pill, childhood obesity should be tackled through exercise and healthy eating). Pill-popping seems easier and so is more attractive to many patients but in practice it is worse for the long-term health of society. By allowing the prescription drugs to be advertised we are making more people believe they are ill and need pills for them, rather than explaining to them that their back pain and high blood pressure are problems caused by their lifestyle choices.[1]   [1] Health Information Action, Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising The European Commission’s Proposals for Legislative Change, September 2011, http://www.haiweb.org/campaign/DTCA/BMintzes_en.pdf, accessed 08/07/2011

allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers The costs and effects of advertising will place an additional burden on the healthcare system

In Canada drug companies should not be allowed 2 advertise prescription drugs directly to public I agree with my opponent's point that the media's power is astronomical. A patient trusts their doctor and if their doctor makes a majorly wrong prescription, then the doctor's license will be at least revoked. Doctors have to go through grueling med school, memorize thousands of drug names in order to achieve their status as one and make good choices for their patient. However, if companies are allowed to advertise prescription drugs without really getting to know the patient and their individual case, the "diagnosis" has a huge chance of being inaccurate and could even be detrimental to the patient's health. One cannot actually tell from an ad who made it, what they are really giving their customers unless one really buys it and sees them. Unfortunately, too many non legit drug companies or even other companies can advertise whatever they want to make a quick buck from gullible people and they could even unknowingly cause their "patients" to have serious medical problems -Thank you

Adverts generate profit. Profit funds research into improved drugs We should not attack drugs companies for making profits from their products, nor for encouraging patients to use them. Each new drug costs an average of $500m to produce and very small percentage of the drugs that are researched ever make it to the market.[1] The more profitable the industry, the more new drugs it can afford to research and develop and thus the more patients who can receive appropriate treatment. Many of the complex cures being developed for diseases like cancer, HIV/AIDs, SARS and Avian Flu will take decades to research. In the meantime, drug companies require funding streams from other drugs to continue research. Drugs have become increasingly expensive and advertisement helps to cover those costs. From 1980 and 2004, from about $6 billion (in 2005 dollars) to $39 billion. There has been a real growth rate of about 8 percent a year, on average. By comparison, drug firms’ gross margins—sales revenue minus costs and income taxes—have been increasing more slowly, by about 4 percent annually.[2] So, with more personalized medicine and greater costs in drug development, the industry needs a greater source of revenue in order to research therapeutics further.  Advertising would provide this revenue. [1] Hollis A., Me-too drugs: is there a problem ?, University of Calgary, published December 2004,  http://www.who.int/intellectualproperty/topics/ip/Me-tooDrugs_Hollis1.pdf, accessed 08/08/2011 [2] Congres of United States, Research and Development in the Pharmaceutical Industry, October 2006,  http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/76xx/doc7615/10-02-DrugR-D.pdf, accessed 08/01/2011

The costs and effects of advertising will place an additional burden on the healthcare system According to a financial study conducted by the Villanova School of Business explained that there is no significant burden to the health care system due to direct-to-consumer advertising. The study, conducted in the years 2001 – 2005 in the United States, shows that there is no significant relationship between advertising and price sensitivity. The comparison with other countries shows, the prices of pharmaceuticals and the price for health care (for drugs) have not risen in the United States. Through advertising, after the introductory phase of a drug, the health system is not burdened more. Simply put people are just able to choose between drugs, in a comparable price range easier and therefore do not cost additional money to the state.[1] So a greater financial burden is no excuse from prohibiting companies to advertise products.  [1] Villanova University, DOES DTC ADVERTISING RAISE PRICE? THE IMPACT OF PHARMACEUTICAL ADVERTISING ON CONSUMERS’ PRICE SENSITIVITY, published 2005 http://www.brandweeknrx.com/files/dtc_drug_advertising_and_drug_prices_study.pdf, accessed 08/07/2011

Advertising will enable patients to get better treatment earlier in their illnesses Advertisements—especially those that identify symptoms—can lead to a healthier citizenry, as consumers become aware of their diseases earlier, and can thus find the drug that targets their problem at an earlier stage. Many drugs can prevent or reduce the likelihood of a patient requiring surgery (for instance anti-cholesterol drugs can reduce the buildup of atheroma in blood vessels, which cause cardiovascular heart disease and strokes, thus reducing the likelihood of a heart bypass being required and improving any post-stroke rehabilitation). This not only saves money but is also better for patients. Surgery involves the risk of complications as well as taking time both directly and in post-operation rehabilitation. Also many degenerative conditions can be best treated by early intervention; if patients are aware of the drugs that are available at an early stage they are more likely to take them, thereby increasing their standard of living and reducing their long-term cost to state or private health cover providers.

The costs and effects of advertising will place an additional burden on the healthcare system Allowing advertising places an additional burden on the health care system. As a result of advertising, if it were allowed, many patients would request the more expensive brand drugs and so place an additional burden on the public health care system. The offered generic drugs have the same effect; they are simply cheaper because they do not spend several millions on advertising. Drug costs are increasing at a faster rate in the United States than anywhere else in the world (roughly by 25% year on year since the mid-1990s). This growth has been mainly driven by patients demanding advertised drugs (they accounted for half the 2002-2003 increase, for instance). Advertised drugs are always more expensive than generic rivals because of the branding and advertising costs, as well as the increased price that manufacturers can demand for a snappily named product. In private health care systems, this drives up insurance premiums, thereby pricing large numbers of people out of health care coverage (44 million Americans have no coverage, despite the United States spending more per capita on health care than any other country). Alternatively, it forces many people to select insurance packages with lower levels of coverage (the solution introduced in 2005 by the Bush administration). The EU has estimated that its member states with public healthcare systems would be crippled if they spent as much on drugs as the United States[1]. Actually estimates in the United Kingdom state that, by buying generic drugs, the public health care system could save more than £300m a year. General practioners could make more use of cheaper, non-brand versions of the drugs, without harming care. An example of the NHS overpricing drugs: one treatment for gastric problems, Omeprazole, can be bought from wholesalers for between £2.50 and £3.40, yet the NHS pays £10.85 every time it is prescribed. To make the matter worse, doctors often over-prescribe; at least £100m could be saved if they were more careful in this matter.[2] Therefore, because it would create a substantial financial burden to the current public health care system, allowing advertising would be a bad idea.   [1] Heath Care in the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States [2] BBC News, Drug profiteering claims denied, published 03/14/2004,  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3511102.stm, accessed 07/30/2011

allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers Creating a mentality of illness

Adverts generate profit. Profit funds research into improved drugs Actually prescription drugs are generally sold expensively worldwide, especially in North America and receive enormous profits, regardless of the advertising. Companies actually have enormous budgets dedicated to advertising, in countries where it is legal. They are required to spend this money because they have to compete with other companies that are advertising their products, but if there were no advertising, they could spend the money on more research. The pharmaceutical industry has been the most profitable industry in America for each of the past 10 years and, in 2001, was a five-and-one-half time more profitable than the average for Fortune 500 companies[1]. Moreover, in Canada, the sale of a typical patented branded drug would bring about a profit margin of almost 70%[2].  “U.S. Pharmaceutical Launches: Marketing Spend and Structure" reveals that the average blockbuster brand in the United States allots 49% of its budget to fulfill advertising needs.  This hefty allotment is attributed to the fact that most blockbuster brands target a mass-market audience that requires large-scale advertising.[3] Advertising reduces the incentive for research into new drugs as companies have found the returns on investment in advertising are better than those on research and development. This is particularly the case as it has become increasingly difficult to find a ‘blockbuster’ drug (because increasingly, new drugs are minor adjustments to existing ones). Significant changes to the way drugs are researched are needed for scientific advancements, but such changes are expensive and carry high risks of failure. It is of much lower risk is to the manufacturer to relicense existing drugs for new markets and new consumers, thereby allowing them to re-brand the drug[4]. So they do not use the money mainly for research for new therapeutics, but spend nearly half of it on advertisements to maximize their profit even more.   [1] CIBC World Markets (2003) 2003 Investors' Guide to The Canadian Drugstore Industry, published 2003,  http://www.envoycapital.com/includes/docs/drugstore_industry.pdf, accessed 07/30/2011 [2] Families USA (2002) Profiting from Pain: Where Prescription Drug Dollars Go,  http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/PPreport89a5.pdf, accessed 07/30/2011 [3] PR Newsmedia – United Business Media, Pharmaceutical Advertising: United States vs. Europe, published 12/22/2010,  http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pharmaceutical-advertising-united-states-vs-europe-55640307.html, accessed 07/29/2011 [4] Turning ideas into products- a pharmaceurtical paradigm shift. http://www.paconsulting.com/our-thinking/turning-ideas-into-products-a-pharmaceutical-paradigm-shift/

In Canada drug companies should not be allowed 2 advertise prescription drugs directly to public I extend all of my arguments. -Thank you

In Canada drug companies should not be allowed 2 advertise prescription drugs directly to public Extend all my arguments.

In Canada drug companies should not be allowed 2 advertise prescription drugs directly to public Hope my opponent shows up eventually.

The malicious and misleading advertisements of today cost of the advertisement is not the primary concern for a company if it is compared with total expenditure on product if advertisement cost is taken as a whole then per unit cost will slightly increase so it's better and beneficial to aware the whole populace by awaring them ......a product's advertisement does not only decides the selling of products it only awares the people......if you are saying that effect on young minds then it is totally wrong and most of the big brands do advertisement if the product is of really quality ...just like for sachine advertises for boost and amitabh chyavanprash....regarding your third point it is not always that we can have available the fresh foods and vegetables so it's the only way....and most of the farthest areas is availed by it ...but the adverse effect of dry is not popularly known to me...regarding alchohals cigerette it gives a large revenue to our government so thats why it is not stopping ......misconceptions about products and transparency regarding product will not remains in a black box it'll come out with a speedy respond by contumer .it'll not decieve people at all ..if there will be any disastrous problem then one product is launched by permission of government then there will be an action.........

Drug Commercials Ok, I know it's legal, but it doesn't have to be right. Just keep telling people they should convince their doctor they need this stuff. Look at Xarelto. They advertiser says you should ask your doctor, on the other station some lawyer is wanting to sue the drug company on your behalf, because of the serious side effects, including death. OK, I know it's legal. I shouldn't have started this debate, you can't fight money and big business. Hopefully people are smart enough to ignore these ads.

Advertising should be BANNED from TV and Radio Thanks for instigating this debate. Since this is a normative question, the burden of proof is shared. I assume that advertising refers to paid announcements by a business.Economic ArgumentsArgument 1: Advertising is almost always waste of resources Advertising is a waste of resources. Advertising comes in two forms: informative and persuasive. Persuasive advertising tends to be more prevalent than informative advertising; this ranges from celebrity endorsements to “advertising showdowns” between various major brands. This provides no tangible benefit to the consumer of these products, aside from the amusement of course. Instead, a lot of time, money and effort is spent on planning and executing tedious advertising ventures. This has an opportunity cost for the consumer: all this time, money and effort could instead be spent on improving the quality of the product and the quality of the customer’s experience. Informative advertising is only not a waste of resources if it leads the customer to making an informed decision and purchasing the right product. I have outlined below why that is often not the case and the repercussions have already been mentioned above. Argument 2: Advertising will result in higher prices in the long run Since advertising creates a cost with no tangible benefit (in other words, customers wouldn’t pay for advertising on its own), it drives up the costs of firms engaging in advertising. In the long run, this would result in higher prices for consumers, depleting consumer surplus and affecting their welfare.To say that an industry should exist simply because it provides employment to people is an economic threat, because it means that money is being spent on something that cannot generate growth. As economic growth is a macroeconomic goal of government, it would be the wise option to ban advertising. Non-economic Arguments Argument 3: Advertising can be misleadingThe firm producing the good has more information about the good than the buyer. This information asymmetry results in firms pushing the envelope in a bid to persuade consumers to purchase their products. Customers rarely understand the product and the industry before buying a good. Consequently, they do not know which product best suits their needs before they purchase it. Let’s look both at persuasive and informative advertising. Persuasive advertising is easy to analyse. Persuasive advertising attempts to skew the customer’s perception of their product with minimal consideration of whether the product really is suitable for the consumer. If a consumer sees an advertisement of one firm and buys its product, when instead the firm’s competitor’s product would have been more suitable, then the advertisement has succeeded in getting business for the firm, but it has come at a cost to the consumer. Informative advertising is a lot more, well some might even say altruistic. It attempts to give more information to the customer about the product and thereby enable the customer to make a more informed decision. However, very often, customers (especially first time buyers) are unable to weigh the options accurately on their own, or make an appropriate decision, because they are unaware of the criteria that go into purchasing the product. The customer, overwhelmed by the information, may end up choosing randomly to get out of their confusion, even if the advertised product is the right one for them. At the end of the day, it is important to understand the dynamics at play. Firms exist to provide benefit to consumers and households. Consumers do not exist to create jobs for firms. As long as firms are hiding behind advertising in a bid to escape their responsibility to consumers, the dynamic will never be at an optimal scale. As an alternative, firms may instead find it better to use the advertising money to fund an organization that will understand consumers’ needs and send them to the right business. If one business gets a larger market share, then it would be an indication that they are doing something right that other businesses should emulate, and that we, as a society, would want continued in the future. We can therefore conclude that advertising should be banned. Looking forward to your response.

This policy enhances the role of drug reps and advertising, at the cost of evidence-based medicine Drugs that are still undergoing clinical trials do not have a complete void of information about them. Presumably this policy covers drugs that have completed at least some testing in humans (say, phase one of the trials), and therefore at least some information would be available on which doctors and patients could base their decisions. Further, it is implausible to suggest that doctors are entirely under the sway of advertisers: whilst drug reps under the status quo have some influence in getting a doctor to use one drug rather than another, this is in instances where there is little to choose between those products, and (importantly!) both are licensed, safe and effective. They would clearly not be so reckless as to blindly follow a drugs rep and prescribe an untested product to their patient.

Exploitative advertising brainwashes children into becoming eager consumers and capitalists. Multin... Banning advertisements is a severe restriction upon freedom of speech. Companies should be able to tell the public about any legal products, or innovation will be restricted and new companies will find it hard to market their products successfully in the face of established rivals. Children also have a human right to receive information from a wide range of sources and make up their own minds about it. They are far from being brainwashed by advertisements, which form only a small part of their experiences; family, friends, school and other television programmes are much more important and all give them alternative views of the world.

Politicians will be less likely to engaged in political marketing and speak more directly to substantive issues. Even though the proposition promised that political dialogue would improve when focused on substantive issues, the opposition believes that this is simply a promised hope.  Political campaigning is advertising by its very nature.   Citizens are informed throughout the campaign through a variety of “advertising” methods from slogans to claims about the product itself.   And campaigns always do an analysis of the consumer.   Opinion polling is not unique. And, to make the assumption that substantive issues will more likely be addressed without opinion polls suggests that they alone have the power to influence the nature of the dialogue.  There are far too many other factors which determine the discussion and debate from immediate events which occur during the campaign to long standing political positions which relate to the development of party consistency or personal philosophy.   The outcome the proposition hopes for cannot be guaranteed nor can a position be sensibly made that a political campaign is not one of marketing.  To be effective the candidate has the right to all available information which is also critical to better democratic discussion.

That we should not target children in advertisements Thank you. First of all, we have agreement. Advertising may lead to consumerism, which is bad. There's no debate on this point. However, my argument that we should let children to get exposed to advertising, is for one thing; education and prevention. The best solution is (obviously is) to avoid advertisement at any cost. However, this is impossible. The reason is because due to modernization and globalization, we're constantly exposed to entertainment, including advertisement. My argument is: With the help of parents (and government), we should expose children to advertisement, so they're immune to the bad thing. Here's what I'm trying to say. An example will help: We're born as weak baby right? Since we're baby, we're given immunization. Those liquid that's injected to our body contains virus. The target of immunization is so our immune will grow up and defeat the virus. After this process of immunization, our body is immune to this disease. That's why nobody got Polio on later age like back in the 40s , due to this immunization. The same logic applies to advertising. With advertising exposed to our kid, bad things will be exposed to our kid, but with morale lesson given to our kids by our parents about bad effect of advertising, our kid is immune to the bad things such as consumerism. I'm not going to explain and debate of which parenting method is the best, since it's out of scope. Advertising is unavoidable, but once in our life, we must face bad things, so we learn from it and then avoid it and "immune" to it. You cannot learn which is bad and which is good, if we don't know which one is. How a kid will tell something is bad if they're not exposed to it. Parents are important in this education process. I'd like to restate this point. I like to make "pressure point" that exposed doesn't have to mean they have to do it. So if I say someone is exposed with drugs, it doesn't mean that guy uses drugs. It's just he know what is drugs.

Drug Commercials Ok, my opponent has basically just conceded the resolution. The resolution states that drug commercials should be legally policed. My opponent just conceded that they are legal and has not attacked my argument on constitutional legality. As far as my opponent's argument goes, he basically uses an example of a company using ads to mislead the public. Again, drug companies can do that. The question is whether or not the company should be punished. And my opponent says that these ads are bad as a whole. In most scenarios, they're actually good because patients learn about the product and the company makes money. Again my opponent just conceded the legality argument (which is what the resolution is about) and is losing the ethics argument.

The malicious and misleading advertisements of today I agree to my opponent that it creates awareness among the consumers regarding the particular product but one can't deny the fact that they are far much misleading Here are the points on which I rely - 1-Cost of advertisement affects the cost of product. It will become burden to costumer. 2-The promoters only emphasise on the merits. 3-Advertisers present the product as a favourite of the celebrities. This has great influence on young minds. 4-People are preferring ready made food than fruits and vegetables through advertising. These new habits are adversely impacting their health. 5-Some pesticides, though in very small quantities were found in common cold drinks. But advertisers are not revealing this fact. 6-All cosmetic products are advertised in the name of fruit extracts, the chemical contents are neither displayed nor printed on the product cover. 7-Teenagers are attracted by cigarette, alcohol and diet pills advertisements, and their health is adversely effecting by these habits. 8-Consumers tend to be manipulated by an advertisement's promise that the product will do something special for them, which upsets their budget. 9-An advertisement for an expensive good is likely to create an ill-feeling in the mind of a poor teenager who cannot afford it. Such feelings often lead to hatred and anti-social activities. I would remind the opponent that he should post his argument and then in the final round we will put up ways and conclusions on this topic

Advertising gives an unfair advantage to big businesses. Small companies might have much better pro... If there wasn't advertising then small businesses would have no chance at all to make their product well known. Adverts can actually level the playing field - if you have a good new product, and market it in a clever way then it doesn't matter how small your company is, you can still make consumers interested. The more you restrict the freedom of information, the more this helps the large companies who everyone already knows about.

Drug Commercials I accept. First of all, my opponent should define drug commercials. Who advertises? What kind of drugs are being advertised? Where are these advertisements? Nevertheless, I'll start out with some basic arguments. Policing these advertisements would be a violation of two parts of the first amendment. Firstly, Freedom of Speech. These companies are trying to promote their brand that is (and has to be) FDA approved. As long is no one is being hurt or defamed by these advertisements, it is unconstitutional to police them. Secondly, freedom of press. Many ads appear in newspapers or magazines. Again, if the drug is FDA approved and the publishing company lets the drug ad go in, it is legal. On constitutional grounds I object to my opprnent.

Advertising is harmful to society Thank you for accepting, Con.I will be making three contentions in this debate:1. Advertising discourages rational decision-making2. Advertising creates a consumer culture3. Advertising adversely affects the cognitive ability of the audienceContention #1 - Advertising discourages rational decision-makingAccording to CEO Insights, "Without advertisement not a single farm or company can grow in this world of competition."[1] The obvious implication of this is that it is not the quality of the product that sells it in today's society, but the aggressiveness of the marketers who advertise it. This is especially true when we consider the rampant dishonesty within advertising. To examine just one industry, nine out of ten people find broadband advertising to be misleading.[2] Richard Pollay, author of The Distorted Mirror: Reflection on the Unintended Consequences of Advertising, analogizes advertising as a type of "brain surgery." Pollay says that ads are designed to "attract attention, change attitudes, and to command our behavior."[3]For an amusing yet somewhat frightening look at the potential power of advertising, please watch the video on the side.Contention #2 - Advertising creates a consumer cultureWhile consumption is naturally an essential part of a capitalist society, it needs to be kept in balance with "producerism" in order to keep it from turning into consumerism. It is worth quoting Professor Amitai Etzioni at length here to explain my point: What needs to be eradicated, or at least greatly tempered, is consumerism: the obsession with acquisition that has become the organizing principle of American life. This is not the same thing as capitalism, nor is it the same thing as consumption. To explain the difference, it is useful to draw on Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. At the bottom of this hierarchy are basic creature comforts; once these are sated, more satisfaction is drawn from affection, self-esteem and, finally, self-actualization. As long as consumption is focused on satisfying basic human needs -- safety, shelter, food, clothing, health care, education -- it is not consumerism. But when, on attempts to satisfy these higher needs through the simple acquisition of goods and services, consumption turns into consumerism -- and consumerism becomes a social disease. The link to the economic crisis should be obvious. A culture in which the urge to consume dominates the psychology of citizens is a culture in which people will do most anything to acquire the means to consume -- working slavish hours, behaving rapaciously in their business pursuits, and even bending the rules in order to maximize their earnings. They will also buy homes beyond their means and think nothing of running up credit-card debt. It therefore seems safe to say that consumerism is, as much as anything else, responsible for the current economic mess.[4] 92% of respondents in a poll said that television commercials aimed at children are responsible for making children materialistic.[5]Contention #3 - Advertising adversely affects the cognitive ability of the audienceAdvertising defines and redefines the desires and tastes of the public. Harnessing the power of media, advertisers are able to cause people to desire irrational products, lifestyles and body images. For example, a report by the British Medical Association called for advertisers to stop featuring "abnormally thin" women in their advertisements as it was causing girls to attempt to emulate the models.[6] This clearly indicates the power of the media to create irrational desires and thoughts within the minds of their audience.Sources1. http://www.theceoinsights.com...2. http://www.virgin.com...3. http://hilo.hawaii.edu...4. http://www.huffingtonpost.com...5. http://www.csun.edu...6. http://www.theguardian.com...http://www.youtube.com...

Advertisements tell children that they should have everything they want. Advertising gives the impression, especially to children, that they can and should have everything they want. This makes people too interested in material things. People are becoming more selfish and obsessed with their possessions, and losing their values of patience, hard work, moderation and the importance of non-material things like family and friends. This harms their relationships and their personal development, which has serious effects for society as a whole. improve this

Individuals have a choice and right to respond to ads and their meaning. It is true that individuals do have the right to consume media and have some power over how they perceive and respond to media. However, since the nature of advertising is always planned for public consumption, then ads contribute to existing attitudes inside a person. When slaves in the U.S. were marketed and sold according to the content of advertising, a social system was being perpetrated. When the injustices of slavery were acknowledged both the business and the marketing of slaves ceased to exist. When the greater social good of justice is held over individual choice, social good should prevail. Advertising which demeans the value of certain groups of citizens is not appropriate for the public marketplace. Although Individual choice and freedom of choice are to be valued, public messages by the nature of their public audience, must serve the greater society. Pornography in the public airways is often regulated and banned because it is seen as potentially harmful to women and children of a society. Due to the public nature of advertising then, the greater society has a more important right than that of individuals. improve this

Advertising aimed at children brings negative social consequences, as much of it is for food and dri... Advertising aimed at children brings negative social consequences, as much of it is for food and drinks that are very unhealthy. Encouraging gullible children to consume so much fatty, sugary and salty food is unethical because it creates obese, unhealthy youngsters, with bad eating habits that will be with them for life. Society also has to pay a high price in terms of the extra medical care such children will eventually require, so the government has a direct interest in preventing advertisements which contribute to this problem.

Advertisements do more harm than good 1) Television is greatly abused for commercial purposes and other types of uses, in which audiences are constantly sold to: Advertisers try to convince the audience that the solution to a problem or the fulfilment of a desire can only be achieved through the purchase of a product. It is designed towards blind acceptance by the viewer. In this way TV negatively affects the human mind, by limiting the possibilities of conscious choice, and promotes a consumer society. It can be also misused to urge people to buy even things they do not need by subliminal advertising. 2)People spend the biggest part of their time view advetisments : According to the statistics, the average American child watches 262 views ads per week. That's how ads reduce the quality of real life by narrowing people's outlook, limiting the variety of free time activities, affecting family relations by reducing conversation, and even having an impact on health by discouraging exercise. ""Research has shown that young children—younger than 8 years—are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against advertising.6–9 They do not understand the notion of intent to sell and frequently accept advertising claims at face value.10 In fact, in the late 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held hearings, reviewed the existing research, and came to the conclusion that it was unfair and deceptive to advertise to children younger than 6 years.11 What kept the FTC from banning such ads was that it was thought to be impractical to implement such a ban.11 However, some Western countries have done exactly that: Sweden and Norway forbid all advertising directed at children younger than 12 years, Greece bans toy advertising until after 10 PM, and Denmark and Belgium severely restrict advertising aimed at children." Television Children and adolescents view 400 00 ads per year on TV alone.13 This occurs despite the fact that the Children's Television Act of 1990 (Pub L No. 101–437) limits advertising on children's programming to 10.5 minutes/hour on weekends and 12 minutes/hour on weekdays. However, much of children's viewing occurs during prime time, which features nearly 16 minutes/hour of advertising.14 A 30-second ad during the Super Bowl now costs $2.3 million but reaches 80 million people.15 Movies A 2000 FTC investigation found that violent movies, music, and video games have been intentionally marketed to children and adolescents.16 Although movie theaters have agreed not to show trailers for R-rated movies before G-rated movies in response to the release of the FTC report, children continue to see advertising for violent media in other venues. For instance, M-rated video games, which according to the gaming industry's own rating system are not recommended for children younger than 17 years, are frequently advertised in movie theaters, video game magazines, and publications with high youth readership.17 Also, movies targeted at children often prominently feature brand-name products and fast food restaurants.18 In 1997–1998, 8 alcohol companies placed products in 233 motion pictures and in 1 episode or more of 181 TV series.18 Print Media According to the Consumer's Union,19 more than 160 magazines are now targeted at children. Young people see 45% more beer ads and 27% more ads for hard liquor in teen magazines than adults do in their magazines.20 Despite the Master Settlement Agreement with the tobacco industry in 1998, tobacco advertising expenditures in 38 youth-oriented magazines amounted to $217 million in 2000.21 The Internet An increasing number of Web sites try to entice children and teenagers to make direct sales. Teenagers account for more than $1 billion in e-commerce dollars,22 and the industry spent $21.6 million on Internet banner ads alone in 2002.23 More than 100 commercial Web sites promote alcohol products.23 The content of these sites varies widely, from little more than basic brand information to chat rooms, "virtual bars," drink recipes, games, contests, and merchandise catalogues. Many of these sites use slick promotional techniques to target young people.23,24 In 1998, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (Pub L No. 105–277) was passed, which mandates that commercial Web sites cannot knowingly collect information from children younger than 13 years. These sites are required to provide notice on the site to parents about their collection, use, and disclosure of children's personal information and must obtain "verifiable parental consent" before collecting, using, or disclosing this information.25 MARKETING TECHNIQUES Advertisers have traditionally used techniques to which children and adolescents are more susceptible, such as product placements in movies and TV shows,26 tie-ins between movies and fast food restaurants,18 tie-ins between TV shows and toy action figures or other products,7 kids' clubs that are linked to popular shows, and celebrity endorsements.27 Cellular phones are currently being marketed to 6- to 12-year-olds, with the potential for directing specific advertisers to children and preteens. Coca-Cola reportedly paid Warner Bros. Studios $150 million for the global marketing rights to the movie "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,"28 and nearly 20% of fast food restaurant ads now mention a toy premium in their ads.29 Certain tie-in products may be inappropriate for children (eg, action figures from the World Wrestling Federation or an action doll that mutters profanities from an R-rated Austin Powers movie). Children's advertising protections will need to be updated for digital TV, which will be in place before 2010. In the near future, children watching a TV program will be able to click an on-screen link and go to a Web site during the program.30 Interactive games and promotions on digital TV will have the ability to lure children away from regular programming, encouraging them to spend a long time in an environment that lacks clear separation between content and advertising. Interactive technology may also allow advertisers to collect vast amounts of information about children's viewing habits and preferences and target them on the basis of that information.31 SPECIFIC HEALTH-RELATED AREAS OF CONCERN Tobacco Advertising Tobacco manufacturers spend $30 million/day ($11.2 billion/year) on advertising and promotion.32 Exposure to tobacco advertising may be a bigger risk factor than having family members and peers who smoke33 and can even undermine the effect of strong parenting practices.34 Two unique and large longitudinal studies have found that approximately one third of all adolescent smoking can be attributed to tobacco advertising and promotions.35,36 In addition, more than 20 studies have found that children exposed to cigarette ads or promotions are more likely to become smokers themselves.37,38 Recent evidence has emerged that tobacco companies have specifically targeted teenagers as young as 13 years of age.39 Alcohol Advertising Alcohol manufacturers spend $5.7 billion/year on advertising and promotion.40 Young people typically view 2000 beer and wine commercials annually,41 with most of the ads concentrated in sports programming. During prime time, only 1 alcohol ad appears every 4 hours; yet, in sports programming, the frequency increases to 2.4 ads per hour.42,43 Research has found that adolescent drinkers are more likely to have been exposed to alcohol advertising.44–50 Given that children begin making decisions about alcohol at an early age—probably during grade school50—exposure to beer commercials represents a significant risk factor.46,50 Minority children may be at particular risk.51"" relevant website: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org... bam! vote for me

advertisment aimed at children should be banned Thanks, Con. For this round I will copy and paste my opponent's new arguments, and then respond directly underneath. 1. "but what about the advertisment that they show in tv, about branded things, which all children nowadays needs to seem to think they need but which is beyound budget of many household, contributes youth to crime." ----> My points regarding parental monitoring of media and teaching life lessons to their kids about consumerism effectively responds to this argument. Crime is an unfortunate reality of our society almost impossible to avoid. Many things deter youth to crime; for instance acceptance in gangs. We can't outlaw the desire to own things or market things -- we can only punish criminal offenders who resort to unethical and unlawful means to satisfy their desires. 2. "children are not mentally prepared developed enough to make decisionthey are easily manipulated by advertisment." ----> This is simply repetition of what was said in the last round, and I've responded. Most of the time children aren't making decisions about what to buy - their adult parents are. I've responded to manipulation in advertisement; refer back to R1. 3. "advertisment to boys has promoted voilent behaviour they cause children to be more fearful agressive and less senstive to the point of other." ----> I would like my opponent to show sources or statistics verifying this statement. It's true that violent media can promote aggression, but most advertisements are not violent nor can they be (due to federal regulations) so this is seemingly a moot point. If my opponent can present credible evidence supporting this, I'll respond to it in the next round. 4. "as opponent says its upto parents decision but as todays generation parents cant keep an eye on children every seond what they do.." ----> Parents don't have to "keep an eye" on kids every single second to be effective in teaching them values or concepts, realities about spending money and consumerism, etc. Once again they also don't have to feed into this consumerism by rewarding their child with every single thing they want. 5. "for little girls asked if they want to be teen top model that the way to do is barbieit is a negative impact. because model are paid to advertise specific clothing instead of defining themselves they are defined. child is exposed to more than 40,000 thousand ads given a year." ----> Yes, children and adults alike are exposed to a lot of advertisement. So? That doesn't negate anything I said in R1 about the legal right to advertise, and how advertising itself is not explicitly immoral. It simply seeks the goal of sales, but it's up to the individual to make informed decisions about what they buy and don't buy. Advertisement can only be immoral insofar as it makes false claims or lies about the product. Con hasn't given instances of this occurring. 6. "the reality is we shape our social values behaviour, taste based on what we see on tv magzine. companies sell their thousand of product which is unhealthy lack of nutreint will make you fat, but ad is shown with beautiful skinny girls . but reality is few this women have that kind of skinny body. but ad is shown in some other ways. In ad they show voilent movies, music, and m rated video games wher children jus get attracted to it wher then children constantly demands." ----> The media can be cruel and hypocritical. This is true. However again we reach the same conclusion of not finding anything intrinsically wrong with the advertising itself. Food companies have the incentive to market food, so they will. Clothing companies have the incentive to market clothes, so they will... using skinny models, if they feel that it will best promote their product. While advertisement and the media help shape our culture and society, their influence should only go so far as their incentives. Once again it's a parents' responsibility to explain these marketing strategies to their children to help them rise above the temptation. Plus, here it seems that Con is saying advertisements perpetuate an unrealistic depiction which negatively impacts one's self-esteem and body image. The same concept can be applied to adults, and again we must look to the reason advertisements exist the way they do. Con apparently wants to force companies to advertise to his own standard, or the standard of what he feels will be best for society. However, is it fair to force a company to market something a specific way and ignore their right to act within the parameters of the law to run their company the way they see fit? Advertisements don't infringe on others' rights, but Con wants to infringe on the rights of advertisers. This seemingly does not add up. Please extend my arguments from R1 about why this would be unfair and counterproductive to society.

Advertisements do more harm than good Thank you for responding. The argument is if advertisements do more harm than good, not if adverts should go away, which they never will. Also When you say that fliers are a cheap way of advertising you are right but few people look at them. I know I speak for a lot of people when I say that if someone leaves a flier at my front door, I throw it away. Also advertising leads to many people being overwhelmed by the endless need to decide between competing demands on their attention – this is known as the tyranny of choice or choice overload. Recent research suggests that people are on average less happy than they were 30 years ago - despite being better off and having much more choice of things to spend their money on. The claims of adverts crowd in on people, raising expectations about a product and leading to inevitable disappointment after it is bought. Shoppers feel that a poor purchase is their fault for not choosing more wisely, and regret not choosing something else instead. Some people are so overwhelmed that they cannot choose at all. Plus many adverts do more than just advertising products. Some try to make people feel inferior if they don't have the product, or if they have something which the product would change. Perceptions of beauty and fashion in particular have been terribly distorted. Many young people have low-self esteem, and lead unhealthy lifestyles because they feel they should be thinner and more attractive like the models they see in adverts. This leads to serious problems like eating-disorders and self-harm.

Advertising gives the impression, especially to children, that they can and should have everything t... Advertising gives the impression, especially to children, that they can and should have everything they want. This makes people too interested in material things. People are becoming more selfish and obsessed with their possessions, and losing their values of patience, hard work, moderation and the importance of non-material things like family and friends. This harms their relationships and their personal development, which has serious effects for society as a whole.

Advertising aimed at children brings negative social consequences, as much of it is for food and dri... Children naturally like foods that are rich in fats, proteins and sugar; they give them the energy they need to play energetically and grow healthily. It is true that eating only such foods is bad for people, but this is again a problem of bad parenting rather than the fault of advertising. And of course, if advertising to children were banned, then governments would not be able to use this means of promoting healthy eating, road safety, hygiene, and other socially useful messages.

Advertisements do more harm than good Advertising has grown to be an industry worth many billions of dollars across the world. Almost all public space has some advertisements in sight and all forms of media, from newspapers to the Internet, are also filled with adverts. Whilst this helps companies sell their produces, and helps consumers to learn what is on offer, many believe that this huge amount of advertising can be harmful. It may make people want too much, or things that they cannot have, or it might make them feel inadequate when they don't have something. Research shows that children can be particularly open to these kinds of risk. Throughout the last 10 years levels of advertisements have raised to ridicules levels. Every ten minuets on T.V you see about four advertisements for cosmetics, fast food, and many other things. Throughout this debate I will discus how advertisements are directed towards gullible kids, stress that they can cause, and how it puts small businesses at a disadvantage.

Small businesses need advertisements to make their products known. If there wasn't advertising then small businesses would have no chance at all to make their product well known. Adverts can actually level the playing field - if you have a good new product, and market it in a clever way then it doesn't matter how small your company is, you can still make consumers interested. The more you restrict the freedom of information, the more this helps the large companies who everyone already knows about.

Advertisements do more harm than good the levels of advertising are just too much these days. You cannot walk down the street, ride on a bus, watch television or read your email without seeing advertisements. People shouldn't have to have their lives attacked by a huge quantity of information they might not want.

Television advertising aimed directly at children should be banned or regulated. Since no refutations have been made, every argument I present in the R1 still stands.

Advertisers don't have the good of society in mind when they do their work - they only care about ma... Advertisers don't have the good of society in mind when they do their work - they only care about making profit. This means that they regularly advertise unhealthy or harmful things. Fast food adverts are a large part of the reason so many children are obese. The adverts just try to make children eat as much food as possible without any concern for the health costs.

Advertising gives an unfair advantage to big businesses. Small companies might have much better pro... Advertising gives an unfair advantage to big businesses. Small companies might have much better products, but they cannot afford to advertise them as well and so people don't find out about them. This restricts the quality of products for consumers, and places a huge roadblock to the success of small businesses.

Advertisements Do More Harm Than Good Advertising gives the impression, especially to children, that they can and should have everything t...

Better targeted advertising benefits consumers Even if the services advertised are effective in providing services that may interest them, the fundamental violation of privacy entailed in compiling personal search data is too serious a danger to people than the fleeting benefits that this sort of advertising might furnish. But this form of advertising is often not as effective, since its reliance on programmes that stereotype demographics can often result in misallocation of advertising. Furthermore, the discomfort people feel at this advertising means they do not like experiencing it, useful or not.

ban targeted online advertising on the basis of user profiles and demographics Better targeted advertising benefits consumers

Television advertising aimed directly at children should be banned or regulated. I await my opponent's defense of her case. Extend all of my arguments and responses from R1; they stand until they are refuted.

advertisment aimed at children should be banned ya as pro says that its parents responsibility. to guide children about things. but children get exposed to certain things of advertisment that they start demanding product. now and then., because advertisment is shown in such a way. they get attracted. to it. 2 In day to day life parents go fo job you cannot have control on child about sayin advertisment product. which they easily get attracted.so things which are not affordable. to spend money on jetstrix video game. wher every child wants when they see advertisment. to spend money on that.they can spend money in something else. which will be useful for them. 3 then why dont they show healthy advertisment about fruits, which is more use ful for children to be nutrient.than obesity to have junk food which they are exposed to advertisment and then get attracted.

advertising is harmful Advertisements promote healthy products and lifestyles.

Medical concerns Dieting is a medical choice and should be treated  as such; advertising the available options rather than discussing this with a doctor means that people do not have all of the available information and cannot make their decision in a safe environment. In comparable areas such as giving up smoking, controlling drinking, making decisions about exercise, knowledge about inoculations before travel and so forth, we prize medical expertise. The diet industry in the UK is worth £2bn[1] (it's $61bn in the US) and is marked out by allowing the same people to tell us that we are sick in the first place and then tell us the cure and then do it all again when the solution didn't work. Generally accepted medical opinion is that this is a slow process with miracle cures both unlikely to work in the first place and, where they do, more unlikely to last. In some cases the dieting may even threaten health. For example French doctors have criticised the Dukan diet, Dr Boris Hansel for example says "There are real risks … infertility, sleep apnoea, high blood pressure, type-two diabetes, liver disease or cardiovascular problems. Following this diet is not harmless; it could cause real health problems" but its endorsement by celebrities mean that many will ignore such warnings or never even hear of them.[2] Most ridiculously, the solution that does work – moderate eating and regular exercise is absolutely free and available to all. [1]    Arabella Weir. Try it – don't diet. The Guardian. 31 December 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/31/hungry-wisdom-diet-g... [2] Kim Willsher, ‘Dukan diet divides French doctors over effect on health’, The Guardian, 30 May 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/30/dukan-diet-france-health-affect

Better targeted advertising benefits consumers By targeting demographics and personal profiles, businesses are able to put forward the services that are statistically likely to pique their target’s interest. Or politicians are able to highlight the messages that matter to that individual voter. In the past, because advertisers had limited budgets and no sophisticated means of reaching their target audience, they had to settle for broad demographics and to cater to majority tastes and interests. This led to a reduction in the breadth of goods and services to niche markets. Targeted advertising helps to alleviate this issue by allowing customers of eclectic tastes to actually find services they are interested in outside the mainstream, enriching their own lives in the process. The internet is vast, and it is often difficult to sift out things that might be interesting to the individual consumer from all the information available. Targeted advertising is one of the most effective ways of providing this information to people.[1] The data compiled to create an individual profile is easily able to divine a broad brushstrokes outline of a person’s likely interests. This creates a better experience for internet users because it provides a far easier means of finding goods and services, groups and ideas, that would interest them, often from sources they might not have otherwise been aware. When Facebook furnishes this service to advertisers, users are shown ads that fit their profiles, ones they might find interesting.[2] Given that there is only finite ad space, it is far better for the consumer to see ads for things they care about while using the service rather than just ignoring pointless things.   [1] Columbus Metropolitan Library. “Using Demographics to Target Your Market”. 2012. http://www.columbuslibrary.org/research/tutorials/using-demographic [2] Lewis, J., “Facebook faces EU curbs on selling users’ interests to advertisers”, The Telegraph, 26 November 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8917836/Facebook-faces-EU-curbs-on-selling-users-interests-to-advertisers.html

The malicious and misleading advertisements of today i am completing my ideas on final round in a sequenced manner 1.There is a reason why advertisement is so common these days. The reason is that advertisement plays a vital role in general commerce. Though we may not think about it so much, ads are just as important for the consumer as it is for the supplier. For starters ads prove that a certain company or business is interested in pleasing the customer. Advertisements are also a good source of information for a potential buyer who may not know much about the company or the products it offers. It also let's people know about a resource or service they might eventually need. Ads also inform the customer about any new improvements to a product. I also believe that advertisement is the greatest tool and source of of expression a company can posses. Through advertisement a manufacturer can directly provide a customer with useful information eliminating the need for a middle man and allowing the customer to decide for themselves on what they want. 2.Advertisement has also been a huge part of our country's tradition and culture. Advertisement as a whole has opened many people's minds to new world views.We must also understand that ads only promote sales and business which is an essential part of any free trade government. Many public notices are used for moral and patriotic purposes as well. 3. Needless to say our system of publicity and advertisement help benefit our economy in every way possible.In a capitalist system of government the economy lives off private and individual trade and advertisement promotes this. Advertisement is also a factor that is vital in the growth of any business big or small, if America's businesses grow so will it's finances. Also in this difficult recession one of the most important factors of recovery is employment, so think about it this way: * Advertisement and Publicity= Prosperous Businesses= Increase in Job Openings= Financial Recovery*

Advertisement is harmful Advertising has grown to be an industry worth many billions of dollars across the world. Online advertising alone is believed to be worth $24 billion a year. Almost all public space has some advertisements in sight and all forms of media, from newspapers to the cinema, are also filled with adverts. Whilst this helps companies sell their products, and helps consumers to learn what is on offer, many believe that this huge amount of advertising can be harmful. It may make people want too much, or things that they cannot have, or it might make them feel inadequate when they don't have something. Research shows that children can be particularly open to these kinds of risk.

Advertisements Do More Harm Than Good We have all seen commercials: on television, on websites, on phone lines, and even on highway billboards. But when do we think about them? More specifically, where can we complain about their drawbacks? This debate discusses whether or not advertisements (that is, commercials on television, billboards, signs, Internet ads, etc.) are beneficial to the majority of people in a society. I will take the Pro/For side of this debate: I believe advertisements do more harm than good. By accepting this challenge, you are saying that advertisements are good. Basic Rules and Agreements: 1. No vulgar, slang, or other offensive language is allowed. 2. Intentional spelling or grammar errors are not permissible. 3. The first round is for introduction and agreement purposes. 4. If sources are used, they must be cited with URLs or titles of books. Please post a comment in case there are ambiguities in the topic or agreements of this debate.

Advertising is harmful to society (. http://www.debate.org...)The

we would restrict advertising aimed at children But it would also have some cons. happening to the children because what if they are getting used and that would make them feel shamed for their whole lives and what if they get abused while they are advertising an advertisement while their parents are away. Add on childrens doesn't know how to complain.

advertisment aimed at children should be banned * Clarifications * Before we begin, I'd like to point out to both my opponent and the audience that THE RESOLUTION IS BACKWARDS. Con advocates in his opening round that advertising to children should be banned, meaning we should assume that he is actually *PRO* resolution and simply made a minor error when instigating this challenge. From this point forth, I will be arguing the *CON* position to the resolution. However, for clarity, I will refer to my opponent as "Con" simply because it'll be easier to keep track. Clearly the audience should respect the fact that my opponent intended to argue as PRO (which is obvious from his round), and if not, he would effectively be arguing against himself so I would have won anyway as he has the burden of proof. Nevertheless, I'm hoping we can all agree that I'm CON, my opponent is PRO, and get on with a great debate :) =========================================================================== Essentially my opponent has given us two reasons in favor of the resolution: 1. Children are manipulated by advertisement agencies that seek not to inform them but persuade them - and children are not mentally developed to make informed decisions. 2. Food marketing toward children has contributed to the obesity epidemic in America. I'll begin by pointing out that the obesity epidemic is not only prevalent in children but to people across the board. Various studies reveal that children with obese parents face the highest risk of being overweight [1]. It's also been noted that children spend less and less time outdoors [2] and nearly 8 hours a day -- not including sleep or school, obviously -- engaged in social or virtual media meaning they're getting less and less exercise. The point here is that various factors are contributing to the obesity epidemic, and advertising only plays a minor role. This becomes even more apparent when you realize that children typically do not have income, meaning no money to buy food or junk. In this way, it becomes mostly the *parents'* responsibility in choosing to buy their kids more healthy options and encourage them to lead more active lifestyles. Speaking of parents, the fact that they are largely responsible for (a) buying things for their children, (b) monitoring their time watching television and (c) teaching them about dealing with the real world - including avoiding marketing ploys - this resolution seemingly becomes obsolete. It's obvious that advertising companies are not acting outside the parameters of their rights, or violating any laws in choosing to advertise. Con says they aim to persuade and not inform people, but this can be said about advertising to *any* demographic - not just children. For instance when Wendy's advertises that they're now open late (to 12 am or later), do you think they're marketing to children? The entire commercial is meant to entice the audience using visual stimulants of certain colors (like red, green and yellow) which have been psychologically proven to stimulate appetite. Obviously the advertisement doesn't expect children to drive themselves to Wendy's at 1:00 in the morning. The point here is this: Companies have a right to advertise; that's how they market their products, grow, expand and profit. This keeps companies afloat creating a plethora of jobs (including the advertisers themselves) and overall benefiting the economy. While laws can always be amended, what they are doing is not immoral. We are not slaves to consumerism and neither are children. While it's true that children are far more easily dissuaded, most of the time they rely on their parents to get what they want. As such, the parents must take a more active role in both educating their children and making sure they don't become victims to marketing ploys. There is essentially no way to get around these "ploys" either; for instance the supermarket usually stacks healthy cereals higher on the shelf, and "kids cereal" lower because they will be in direct eye-sight of the child who will then request the purchase. This might seem manipulative, but almost all of our interaction and especially acts of consumerism are intended simply to persuade people to buy their products. The company doesn't care how or why; their main incentive is simply to profit, and that's not necessarily a bad thing (if they're being safe in the process and not directly harming others). Remember that this can be avoided by parental regulation of media intake and other lessons. Plus, ultimately one's parent has the control of whether or not to feed into the sensationalism. Thanks, Con, for starting this debate and good luck in the next round. [1] http://www.innovations-report.de... [2] http://www.heartland.org...

Yes because it would allow natural selection to proceed If people cannot understand basic information about the risks of a particular activity then they will suffer the consequences and hopefully nature will select them out of the population before they can breed. If someone decides to smoke, drink (the major killers and the major expense for the taxpayer BTW) or take any drug then they should be allowed to do so. There is plenty of information out there to allow people to make an informed choice. If they harm themselves or others as a result of their decision then they should be denied free healthcare and made to compensate financially and criminally any individual they harm as a result of their informed decision. People who are incapable of understanding this most basic of information are a drain on humanity and should not be allowed to propagate their DNA. Research has shown that they are more likely to wear white trainers and have a satellite dish. This way, in a few hundred years or so, hardworking taxpayers will be relieved of the burden of illicit drug use as well as seeing their welfare bill plummet. The only losers with be Reebok and Sky

Advertisements do more harm than good My Opponent claims small businesses "can't afford advertisements", but I never said a business had to pay for ads initially, flyers are advertisements, and can be printed relatively cheap, there are also relatively cheap web advertisements. My opponent claims that the larger Business achieves 30% more customers from advertisements than smaller businesses, but he fails to mention, the customers who decided to go to the new businesses, use to be the customers of the older business. Every business has to start somewhere, and compete against much larger companies, who have already earned and maintained a good reputation. Taking away the right to advertise your business would not give the smaller business the edge, it would only act as a speed bump to the smaller company. My opponent has made the claim that "the company's job to promote and sell their product" has no relevance to the debate, however is just as every bit as relevant as the child's role in the debate. A salesman's job is to sell the product. If a salesman tells you, "buy X-deodorant is smells like x" but than says, "it leaves a messy stain on your clothes", how many people will buy the product? To the same degree, say they just came out with a toothpaste capable of restoring tooth enamel, how any would buy the toothpaste over their current brand, let alone know it can restore enamel, unless they advertise the new product? No offense intended but my opponent seem to have the idea children are incapable of resisting advertisements, while at the same time being financially dependent enough to be the one writing the check. As I stated before, envy is a survival mechanism in all primates, advertisements only play on preexisting sentiments, thus the only problem would be a fiscal one. I have never met someone who started smoking because of a mascot, I have met someone who have started smoking because of a PSA telling them not to smoke. Children are defiant, and what they perceive as "cool" more has to do with peers, than it has to do with the media. Peers did not get the idea of what's cool from advertisements either, more or less they got the idea from watching role models do it; for example an older brother, an uncle, or someone they see on the street who looks and acts "cool". They are not fully matured until 21, and because of that they are more perceptive to envy, lust, and anger but they outgrow that, just as they outgrow crying in a store, or yelling in a movie theater. I look forward to seeing your counter argument.

Promotional Diet Advertisement Should Not Exist Dietary Advertisement are Advertised increasingly high throughout these days ..I admit that even i myself are caught up in these kinds on Advertisement. Most of these Advertisements are mostly cons. Not all of them are true. Not Only that teenagers will easily be effected and they will eventually take actions without any guide. They will make there own unhealthy diets and it will eventually effect there health .Not all teenagers will think rationally about what they are about to do .Its true that we want teenagers to make there own step to ensure there life path but it will eventually ruin there life if we don't guide them .these kind of things may cause teenagers to have anorexia..they will starve themselves. Some teenagers are naturally already thin but because of these kind of advertisement will make them have a different perspective.

grant those diagnosed with terminal illnesses the right to access treatments that have not completed clinical testing This policy enhances the role of drug reps and advertising, at the cost of evidence-based medicine

That we should not target children in advertisements So in the final part of this debate, there have been a number of key themes that have been echoed throughout the debate, the key themes that both sides wish to win in order to win this debate. 1. The theme of implications arising from advertising, that advertising negatively impacts children In this theme, we have argued about the negative connotations that are manifested by advertising. We drew out the example of bullying. Con attempted to rebut this by pointing out it as a 'straw man' and pointing out how connections fail to exist. However, connections DO exist. We must try to focus on how both advertising and bullying creates consequences for individuals at a young age. Yes, advertising promotes consumerism, but consumerism is a very broad issue. Advertising creates want in children. It encourages children to pursue the latest innovative toy. This leads to competition between children, which in turn can lead to cases of bullying. While this is a relatively small link, the biggest link between the two is that both share negative consequences and that is what we have been trying to stress throughout the second speech. In the second speech, we narrowed the debate to the idea of advertising from fast food joints promoting poor dieting and health issues. The con then moves on to reply to this by pointing out that 'parents failed to give a proper education.' Ladies and gentlemen, this is a MAJOR contradiction! The Con spends a significant amount of their rebuttal hinging around the positive effects of parents on children, but then moves on to quote how there are a certain amount of parents who neglect to do so. They raised the point of parents but effectively made that argument redundant by proving it wrong in certain cases. Hence, the home-schooling point in addition to the point about parents helping children out is rendered redundant. However, even if this was not the case, parents should not be burdened with the expectation that they have to spend a considerable amount of time lecturing and educating their children. Parents do not live the easy life, they have to spend extensive periods of time at their workplace in order to make a solid living for their family. We should not be imposing extra regulations and burdens on these parents to justify the state's laziness. Again, repeating earlier, we need to cut this off from the stem, and that is something the state can do. 2. The morality of advertisements targeting children, the weak This theme has been poorly explored throughout the debate, however the Con has not once attacked nor responded to our idea that advertisements are immorally targeting children, so we have common ground, in favour of the Pro. Advertisements targeting children is unethical, something that both sides have agreed on. 3. Whether this issue is something that is reduced over time Con attempted to resolve this theme by pointing out that without learning 'morale lessons' from their childhood, they are unable to make better decisions. Yes, this is partly true. What the con however, failed to raise up is the point that there are schools. Schools are here for a reason. -The con attempts to justify their reasoning with the idea that parents are the sole source of education. But again, in theme 1, the idea of using parents as the sole or main source of education is highly flawed. -However, even if we do use schools to educate children, children have an active time of around 6 hours away from school every day (not including sleeping), and around 12 hours on weekends. This is around 50-55 hours every week away from school, becoming increasingly susceptible to inappropriate advertisements. -We can link this to the drug issue prevalent in society. Drugs are commonly devalued and looked down upon, but there are laws restricting the use of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs to 18 years of age (or 21 in some countries). Why does the law do this? This is because the state believes that children have matured enough and gained enough knowledge from the educational system that they can make their own informed decisions. Parents cannot teach their children appropriately in a short amount of time. We should neither expect nor force them to. Drug dealers cannot target children because there is an explicit harm involved, while the harm with advertising is reduced to a certain extent, it lies around the same morals and we should not allow these companies to actively target children for the sake of greed and profit. Ladies and gentlemen, we should not allow these companies to target these children to satiate their own greed. This is one part of the status quo that is inherently flawed and we need to fix this. As we can firmly see, the three key themes of this debate fall on the pro side and this is why we are proud to propose.

advertising is harmful Advertisements tell children that they should have everything they want.

Advertisements do more harm than good My main points will be as follows: 1. People need advertisements. 2. Advertisements contribute to the economy. 3. Alot of free things are free because of advertisments. My first point: People need advertisements. What would a world without advertisements be like for humans? First of all alot of the worldy items that we want or need are given to us as a direct result from advertising! How would we know where and how to get set up with the best prices and promos for the items we need, such as internet, tv, phone, groceries, etc! We see and hear advertisements that represent the best ways to get the items we need for cheap. As most people know, not every single person in this world has pockets full of money to spend on things. We need to know and hear about the things that will save us money, so we can be better, and more econmical with our spending. Without knowing how much to spend and where to spend at for the best ways to save, how would anyone have money to pay the bills? Advertisements are absolutely nessecary for this reason! My second point: Advertisements contribute to the economy. Pretty much every single business in the world, needs some sort of marketing ploy for it to be able to run properly. Marketing is run majorly off of advertising alone. Without advertisement, you wouldn't be able to get paid properly for the work you do. If people don't know about a product, then they will not buy your product plain and simple. If you want your business to prosper, you need advertisements, plain and simple. That's how businesses make money, and that's how you get paid for the hours to work everyday! If no one were to spend money on products, are economy would collapse! In this article I am providing, it will explain how to the consumer spending it what helps the economy thrive. . http://helpsavemydollars.com... "Let's say you deposited this $1,000 into your savings account. Most likely, it's a win-win situation for you because you're probably earning interest on this money and you now have $1,000 in liquid cash that can be very helpful should you lose your job in the future or should you incur any unexpected expenses later on. It's also a win-win scenario for the bank. You just "gave" the bank $1,000 to loan out to other people/businesses. Remember, banks are here to make money and they do that by loaning out the money that you deposited. Since you deposited $1,000 into the bank, that bank can now loan it out to a pizza parlor, for example, to be used in part to buy a new pizza oven. Now because that pizza parlor replaced their old oven using that $1,000 loan from the bank, they can now make more pizzas at a faster rate, which would mean that the parlor now must purchase more dough, sauce and cheese from a food supplier. Now the food supplier benefits from all of this extra business and the food supplier will use the money it earns from selling dough, sauce and cheese to pay its employees. The employees of the food supplier now have money to pay their personal bills and they might even have some left over money to go to the movies. Since you saved that $1,000, as opposed to buying a new television, an even more impactful chain reaction occurred. " My third point: Alot of free things are free because of advertisements. Alot of things we use every single day for are very own enjoyment, are only free as a directv result of advertisement. Many people listen to the radio on their way to school or work. Have you ever consindered how the radio stations make money if the radio is a free service to everyone? It's simply due to the fact that people and businesses will pay good money for their product to be mentioned by peoples favorite hosts, and during commercials. People who like to watch movies online for free also benefit for advertising. How to those sites benefit from making movies free to the public? Directly from advertising! The most famous movie site that comes to mind is a site called tubeplus. me. This site offers almost every tv show or movie known to people, that millions of people are able to enjoy due to the fact that there are advertisement on the side. The same goes for virtually any website that a person would need to use. Music, games, tv companies, they all make their money from advertising. Now i'm going to quickly move on to my opponent. My opponent states: "People shouldn't have to have their lives attacked by a huge quantity of information they might not want. " This is not true in the slightest. Business and companies that advertisement pay to have there information posted publicy. It's not forced on anyone and everyone has the ability to choose whether or not to read or listen to an advertisement. So how are people being 'attacked'?

Drug Commercials There must be a way to police these drug commercials. Other countries have laws prohibiting the advertising of drugs to the general public. Let these companies advertise their drugs to physicians through the internet or mailings. I am so sick of these ads. I just change the station. put the sound on mute, or better still, shut the TV off. You couldn't pay me to take this crap!! FDA doesn't care, they are in bed with these pharmaceutical companies, and the networks don't care they are making billions.

There should be stricter control over the volumes of TV commercials "I invite my opponent to provide his/her reasons as to why we should not have greater control against this." The burden is not mine. Anyhow here are my arguments: o Television is still popular hence there aren't too many advertisements: http://www.editorsweblog.org... o Business It makes people aware of many different products. o Keeps television alive It helps advertising agencies and communication mediums such as television, radio, newspaper to make good amount of revenues from advertisements. Hence advertising is benefiting great number of people in many ways. Ill end it here

Advertisements do more harm than good My opponent says" The argument is if advertisements do more harm than good, not if adverts should go away, which they never will.", but the reason why advertisements would never go away is because they are essential to the economy, without advertisement, the economy would suffer, as sales would be down, and when sales go down unemployment would increase. When I speak of flyers which my opponent has agreed is a cheap source of advertisements, I am not speaking of the flyers in the mail, I am talking about the flyers on lamp posts, that people see when on the side walk. Or flyers handed out in front of the store or restaurant. My opponent has tried to draw a connection between increase in advertisement and increase in discontent, but discontent usually is a result of changes in society, rather than changes in what we buy. For example happiness in 1960's plummeted due to the Vietnam war, and growing discontent, we remained about the same since the 1970's, but we are slightly less unhappy than in the 1970's because of the gradual decline. After the Vietnam war in 1975, happiness gradually increased until the Early 1980s recession, which lead to a gradual decline. We also had a decline of happiness from the Early 1990s recession, the Early 2000s recession, and the Late-2000s recession. In other words, happiness is related to the state of the economy, not the production of advertisements. My opponent claims that, "Shoppers feel that a poor purchase is their fault for not choosing more wisely, and regret not choosing something else instead.". That does not change with a reduction of advertisements, in fact advertisements inform the consumer about the product. Without advertisements less people would know about the better product. Let's say 30 people buy flip phones, while 70 people buy I-phones, without advertisements, 50 would buy I-phones, and 50 would buy flip phones, because 20 people didn't hear about the features of the I-phone. Now when those 20 people see the people with the I-phone, they would become upset that they did not opt for the I-phone over their flip phone. My opponent has tried to draw connections between advertisements and the fascination with Skinny models, but the fact of the matter is, the advertisers already play on per-existing sentiments. Centuries ago being over weight was a sign of beauty because it was a sign of wealth, and advertisers used the idea of beauty of the time to sell items. In 19th century a hour glass shape was seen as beautiful by society, and advertisers again used society's idea of beauty to sell products. In more recent years skinny is seen as beautiful, so advertisers, use what SOCIETY has said is beautiful, in order to SELL products. If 80% of people decided to go out and get dread locks, than a month later an actor decides to go along with the fad, would you believe the actor started the fad, or would you believe he hopped on the band wagon? The fact of the matter is, Advertisements are meant to SELL products. Selling the product means they have to APPEAL to society. In order for advertisements to appeal to society they need to use the per-existing ideals SOCIETY has created, and they must be able to use PER-EXISTING sentiments to their advantage.

There should be no ads during TV programs specifically aimed at children I accept. As Con, I am arguing that ads specifically aimed towards children should be allowed during TV programs. Since Pro has presented his arguments in the first round, I will also proceed with rebuttals and arguments. Rebuttals: 1. " Now think about what that would sound like to a young child" An annoying jingle will sound like an annoy jingle to children. I do not understand what Pro is implying with this vague statement. I ask the Pro to explain. 2. "If these ads are aimed at children, they will remember those ads for a long time" I would like some evidence that substantiates this claim. Why would ads be memorable if they are intended for children? According to numerous researches, adults, who have much more complex and developed brains and memory systems than children's, only retain information that is deemed necessary. [1] Because of the stupendous amount of information that bombards a human being every day, one does not retain most of the information the brain receives. If adults can not remember most of what happens in their daily lives, it is obvious that children do not remember those insignificant ads for a "long time" 3. "then during the ad they will actually pay attention" Another ambiguous statement in need of evidence. According to the research by Jeffrey G. Johnson, PhD; Patricia Cohen, PhD; Stephanie Kasen, PhD; Judith S. Brook EdD, viewing television actually evokes attention difficulties. [2] Thus, it is misguided to think that children pay attention to ads on the television. 4. "Also humans have a balance of what they need as opposed to what they want" Do humans really have a clear distinction between their needs and wants? It is extremely common to hear people say that they need things that are actually redundant in their lives. Again, when adults are having trouble distinguishing between what they truly need and what they merely want, children generally wouldn't be able to discern the differences very well. 5. "We know that everything we need, we can somehow manage to get it for ourselves without needing to be talked into it." Need is defined as "circumstances in which something is necessary; necessity:" by Oxford Dictionary. [3] People don't need cell phones or computers. They need air, water and shelter. These vital necessities are not advertised because, as Pro mentioned, people will get them without needing to be talked to. 6. "Ads trigger this feeling of need and can then result in the watcher feeling inadequate" How do Ads trigger the feeling of need? What is this "feeling of inadequate" that you are talking about. I ask Pro to expound his statement in future rounds. Now for my arguments. 1. Financial Aspect Advertising directed at children is estimated at over $15 billion annually " about 2.5 times more than what it was in 1992. [4] Television advertisement is a billion dollar industry. If this industry was to be banned, all the revenue will disappear into the thin air. Thousands of people will lose their jobs. National GDP will fall. If advertising in TV is banned, the whole economy will be negatively affected. 2. Impracticality of Prohibition Banning advertisements specifically intended towards children is, quite frankly, impractical. First of all, the law that indicates this prohibition will have to be passed. However, since large corporations that create those ads are largely involved in Politics, sponsoring numerous political candidates, these laws will never get passed. Secondly, the implementation of this law is also impractical. How are the Ads to be determined as children targeting? What would be the age range of children? Merriam-Webster defines child as "a young person." [5] The sheer scale of things that needs to be defined, regulated and implemented marks its improbability. I would like to end this round with one of my strongest argument. 3. Civil Rights Banning Ads directed towards children would be a form of censorship. Censorship is an extremely controversial issue that will add to the impracticality of banning children targeting Ads. There are numerous documents that oppose banning of any media. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution which states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." [6] Banning advertisements can be argued as a violation of the First Amendment. Also, the internationally recognized United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states the freedom of press. The article 19 states "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." [7] As such prohibition of advertisements targeting children will be a violation of inherent human right established in some of the most revered documents. I await Pro's rebuttals and arguments. [1] http://www.lucid-research.com... [2] http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com... [3] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com... [4] Susan Linn, Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood (New York: The New Press, 2004) [5]http://www.merriam-webster.com... [6]http://www.law.cornell.edu... [7]http://www.un.org...

Advertisements Do More Harm Than Good Thank you, joshuaXlawyer for accepting this challenge. I look forward to debating with you.As this is the first true round, I will start with my three main points.1. Commercials are Annoying in General "Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless." -- Sinclair Lewis (American Writer)Almost all television watchers know how annoying infomercials can be. They take up TV time with, in many cases, products that the watcher is not interested in purchasing. However, there is more to it than that.Some commercials fall into the category of repetition. These particular ads are shown too many times a day. They can also repeat information over and over again. Take the Head-on commercial for example (search for it on YouTube). "Head-On, apply directly to the forehead" is said three times consecutively. Does it cure acne? Does it relieve headaches? These unanswered questions leave the watcher to wonder what the product is supposed to do, let alone purchase it.Other commercials may have unnecessary salespeople. Watch a car commercial, and you'd understand.Finally, many infomercials contain tricks, catches, and gimmicks, many of which are not shown to the consumer. Companies obviously want the positives about their products on commercials. Therefore, they may hide negative information such as “just pay separate shipping and handling” and “taxes and other charges apply” in fast talking and small, barely-readable fonts. This fact is inconvenient for the consumer.2. The Products Usually Do Not Work(1) http://abcnews.go.com...The source above describes of an "Infomercial Junkie," a so-called consumer who purchases commercial products from television infomercials excessively. Although I have not found anything directly stated in the source that the products do not work, I do remember Yahoo! News once reporting on this event on their homepage. The headline stated that, out of the hundreds of products she had purchased, none of those products have changed her life.Once, I had purchased a toothpaste dispenser on television. The commercial promised an easier and cleaner way of dispensing toothpaste besides using a tube. It worked for the first month, but eventually did become messy and malfunctional. It turned out that I eventually went back to using a tube.3. Ads Tend to Benefit Only Large Companies Rather than the General PublicAmerica itself, if you have been hearing the news lately, has been having financial issues of its own. Many people knee-deep in debt do not need to buy more products, especially ones that do not work. Therefore, commercials are unnecessary in tempting those in debt to spend more money.Therefore, advertisements tend to benefit the larger companies selling cheap products at high prices. At the same time, the general public makes up the majority of the business world. Needless to say, ads help a small group while mildly harming the larger one.I now conclude my portion of this round. Good luck to my contender in his part of round 2.

advertisment aimed at children should be banned Thank you. As can be seen, my opponent has presented no opening arguments to support his stance, but I will not hesitate to present my own arguments in favor of a ban on "advertisement aimed at children," which, I presume, means any form of advertisement on television, web, magazines, etc. that is aimed at children. Advertisement: "A notice, such as a poster or a paid announcement in the print, broadcast, or electronic media, designed to attract public attention or patronage."[1] Ban: "To prohibit, especially by official decree."[2] I have no need of defining the term "children" (plural). I sincerely hope that everybody here knows what that means. -- Arguments -- I shall begin by asking: what exactly is advertisement for children? Who determines that? Where do we place a border between advertisement for children and advertisement for adults? What kind of content differentiates between content for children and content for adults? Surely, most people may say that toys are for children and action movies are for adults, but there are other things that are rather very difficult to categorize and aim at a particular group of people. Before the 90's, the content on television was clearly not mixed, i.e. content for the young viewers was differentiated to content for the more aged viewers. As can be seen on a list of cartoons from the 80's,[3] there were very few that showed any sort of adult content, such as display of human bodies without enough clothes. As a matter of fact, I clicked on random cartoons and found only one to show depiction of half-naked bodies. The greatest fraction is indeed not filled with such content. For instance, the cartoon "Babar"[4] is clearly for children. It is based on a book for children and shows no adult content. However, even during the 90's, most content for children was not to be mistaken with content for adults. Child singers were no bad role models for other youngsters. A good example is a singer called Kimberly Scott. As far as I am aware, she sung during the late 90's, and was a child singer. One of her well-known songs is called "Tuck Me In" and the lyrics are indeed splendiferous.[5] Such songs and singers were not influencing children in any antagonistic way. However, as downtrodden as it is, it is undeniable that with the songs from teenage/child singers nowadays, youngsters are influenced in a very negative way. A good example is the singer called Miley Cyrus. She is young, hardly an adult at this point as far as I am concerned, and not only are her songs influencing children in a negative way, but so does her appearance and perhaps also lifestyle. You may ask, "Dear Mirza, why are you telling us all this?" A simple question with a little more complicated answer to it, I must say. I will throughout this round explicate this. o Advertisement Nowadays, it is very hard to isolate specific content for a particular group of people. In the 90's, it was enough for a parent to turn off the television and prevent his child from watching movies or seeing all different sorts of advertisements. Withal, that is not the case today. We have the Internet, television, and gaming consoles (which can be used for web browsing). Most children in developed countries have a strong desire for video gaming consoles, the Internet, and such similar media and technology. It is indeed so that a child avoiding any of those is difficult. They can either learn how to break parental control, visit a friend to browse the web, and so forth. Therefore, they have constant access to almost anything related to the media. Therefore, the dangers of advertisements are even greater today than ever before, and we should take the steps necessary to eliminated negative advertisements from television. How about the Internet? Yes, we can indeed set a ban that applies for advertisements on the web, even though it is not easy to trace the criminals. o Negative effects of advertisement aimed at children This is the main part, namely about the negative effects of advertisement aimed at children. As I explained above, advertisement today, even for children, is of mixed kind. A singer like Miley Cyrus differs a little to one like Rihanna, both in terms of songs and appearance. Therefore, any advertisement of Miley Cyrus, i.e. her songs and appearance, is not different to advertisement of Rihanna, who is an adult, yet it is clear that the advertisements of Miley Cyrus are far more dominant on television channels for children. This is clear evidence that adult content is mistaken with child content. 1. Teen stars advertised As I have made evident already, teen stars are advertised and the advertisements are aimed at children. However, lots of songs of the albums that are being advertised are indeed not appropriate for children. A song called "Can't Be Tamed" by Miley Cyrus begins with the following words: "For those who don't know me, I can get a bit crazy Have to get my way, 24 hours a day 'Cause I'm hot like that Every guy everywhere just gives me mad attention Like I'm under inspection, I always get the 10s 'Cause I'm built like that" She speaks of being "hot" and every guy giving her "mad attention." Then she makes an ultimate personal conclusion and ends the first part with, "'Cause I'm built like that" - Indeed this is making her a very bad role model, yet she appears on television throughout the world, especially on channels for children. This can make non-adolescent girls have very low self-esteems because they think that they are not beautiful at all, seeing how they do not get any similar attention like Miley Cyrus does, even though they do whatever they can, and start displaying their bodies. This can eventually lead to suicide. 2. Unhealthy food advertised Obesity is a plague in the United States of America.[6] People, especially youngsters, are exposed to flows of unhealthy food advertisements. While children grow up, especially before they reach puberty, they develop strong desires for what their environment seems to be in favor of, looking from their perspective. With many people enjoying fast food, television advertising it daily, it is clear that the effect is gross.[7] Therefore, this form of advertisement should be banned for children. 3. Children ask too much of parents Putting aside the negative influences and effects I mentioned above, when children are exposed to advertisements of toys, they wish to ask their parents to buy them, and unfortunately, not all parents can buy many toys for their children to play with. This may make a child feel distanced to his parents because it may not understand why his parents do not want to meet his needs for materials. See source #8 please. Until we reach a point - which seems to be unlikely, unfortunately - where we are able to determine what kind of advertisement is particularly good for children, we should avoid advertising to them. -- References -- [1] http://www.thefreedictionary.com... [2] http://www.thefreedictionary.com... [3] http://www.80scartoons.net... [4] http://www.80scartoons.net... [5] http://www.fresh-lyrics.com... [6] http://www.annecollins.com... [7] http://www.msnbc.msn.com... [8] http://www.youngmedia.org.au...

Advertisements do more harm than good thank you very good points your first point is irrelevant were are debating if ads to more harm then good, your point explains why we advitisments are needed. my opinion on your second point i agree ads do contribute to the economy, inorder for business to succed in societys attention they need ads. but, nowdays business are brainwashing us with millions of ads. Consumers are exposed to hundreds of commercial messages per day in one form or another -- from the boring, copy-laden radio commercial to the easily skimmed, forgettable newspaper ad, and from the billboard on the side of the bus to the logo on the side of the building. The average American is exposed to 247 commercial messages each day. Consumer Reports Website http://www.consumerreports.org... CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=18759&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=18151 People cannot just choose to ignore advertising, because advertisers use many underhand methods to get their message across. Posters have attention grabbing words, or provocative pictures. Some adverts today are even being hidden in what seem like pieces or art or public information so people don't realise they are being marketed to. By targeting people's unconscious thoughts adverts are a form of brainwashing that take away people's freedoms to make choices. Advertising gives an unfair advantage to big businesses. Small companies might have much better products, but they cannot afford to advertise them as well and so people don't find out about them. This restricts the quality of products for consumers, and places a huge roadblock to the success of small businesses. you last point is confusing in round three could you explain your point please and its relation to the debate topic? thank you

Advertisements do more harm than good My opponent says that "Advertisement is a essential tool for small businesses to get off the ground." most small businesses can not afford advertisements and even if they do, do they make a difference? A study put two advertisements in a paper for the same product with a large well known company putting it as 5% off and the not well know putting the same product at 50% off, 30 percent more people went to large business then the small one. Also my opponent stated that it's the company's job to promote and sell their product. This does not help either of our arguments. Companies manipulate there mind to sell them products that can be harmful, like cigeretes companies make funny logos like Camel and that makes kids think that it is "cool" to smoke. The brain is not fully mature until 21 years old and by then people will have seen millions of advertisements. At some point they will look at something bad for their body and think that they should do it because somehow the company made the picture appealing or the kids can connect to in some way. I look forward to your next posting.

Public health reasons It is surely a good reason now why children and adults find it difficult to get hold of drugs and a reason why all of the other has not been suggested. There have been a significant amount of reported cases of children getting hold of parent's or guardian's drugs when drugs are prohibited now. This is not because the prohibition of drugs does not work, but that drugs themselves are bad and no matter what we do we cannot erase the fact that we have discovered them. If, however, we decided the logical result to the above would be to allow drugs on the market, even if they are carefully censored, the drug-addict would leave a lot more pills for example lying around for their child to be able to pick up and play with. Drug-taking now is done in private because prohibition is effective, but if drug-taking was public, children would be a lot more aware at a young age of their existence and this is temptation.

Advertisements Do More Harm Than Good Advertising gives an unfair advantage to big businesses. Small companies might have much better pro...

Laws Should Not Be Passed To Protect People From Themselves Recreational drugs can only do bad in society, as they harm the physical and mental health of those individuals who consume them, in addition to contributing to social problems. The legalization of recreational drugs would send out the message that consuming recreational drugs is more acceptable and less harmful than previously thought, and through this and the increased availability and accessibility of recreational drugs, individuals and society as a whole would suffer. The notion of personal freedom is trumped by the adverse effects that the legalization of recreational drugs would entail.

advertisment aimed at children should be banned advertisment aimed at children should be banned because advertisment aimed at children is unethical because children are not mentally developed to make decision 1 they are easy manipulated by advertisment seek not to give information but to persuade them. 2 children food marketing business is strong they fall into it cause obesity problem in children As my opponent is saying that every thing depends about parents to buy, materalistic thing to children or not buy, 1 but what about the advertisment that they show in tv, about branded things, which all children nowadays needs to seem to think they need but which is beyound budget of many household, contributes youth to crime. 2 children are not mentally prepared developed enough to make decisionthey are easily manipulated by advertisment. 3 advertisment to boys has promoted voilent behaviour they cause children to be more fearful agressive and less senstive to the point of other. 4 as opponent says its upto parents decision but as todays generation parents cant keep an eye on children every seond what they do.. 5 for little girls asked if they want to be teen top model that the way to do is barbieit is a negative impact. because model are paid to advertise specific clothing instead of defining themselves they are defined. child is exposed to more than 40,000 thousand ads given a year. 6 the reality is we shape our social values behaviour, taste based on what we see on tv magzine. companies sell their thousand of product which is unhealthy lack of nutreint will make you fat, but ad is shown with beautiful skinny girls . but reality is few this women have that kind of skinny body. but ad is shown in some other ways. In ad they show voilent movies, music, and m rated video games wher children jus get attracted to it wher then children constantly demands.

Advertisements The levels of advertising are just too much these days. You can't walk down the street, ride a bus, watch television, surf the web, or read your email without seeing advertisements. People shouldn't have to have their lives attacked by a huge quantity of information they might not want. People can't just choose to ignore advertising because advertisers use a lot of methods to get their message across. Posters have attention grabbing words and/or pictures. Some adverts today are even being hidden in what seem like pieces of art or public information so people don't realise they are being marketed to. By targeting people’s unconscious thoughts, adverts are a form of brainwashing that take away people's freedoms to make choices. A lot of adverts do more than just advertising products. Some try to make people feel inferior if they don't have the product, or if they have something which the product would change. Perceptions of beauty and fashion in particular have been terribly distorted. Many young people have low-self esteem and lead unhealthy lifestyles because they feel they should be thinner and more attractive like the models they see in adverts. This leads to serious problems like eating-disorders and self-harm. Advertising gives the impression, especially to young kids that they can and should have everything they want. This makes people too interested in material things. People are becoming more selfish and obsessed with their possessions and losing their values of patience, hard work, moderation and the importance of non-material things like family and friends. This harms their relationships and their personal development, which has serious effects for society.

advertising is harmful Advertising helps us choose between different goods.

Advertisements Do More Harm Than Good Advertisers don't have the good of society in mind when they do their work - they only care about ma...

Advertisements do more harm than good you should vote for me for because i unquestionably proved my points to the fullest degree of understanding, its not fair that you are attack me personally, im new immigrant from japan in canada first, i skipped over your ssome of your point because they merely do not relate well with the topic second, i only agreed with your ideals with its relation to the economy, not as a fact of your opinion third, your being very silly and rude.. this is a debate not a personal argument 4. your points are limited with examples from irrelevant websites that dont support your claim again advisement are polluting society, because it harm individuality and thought. if you watched the documenty super size me, there is on scene where they show a picture of Christ and ronal McDonald, only a few kids recognized christ and all knew who Ronald McDonald was. it show that kid are being over bombarded with advetisments.For children and young people there are particular problems associated with the effects of advertising. They are the one who are often vulnerable to messages which are put forward in the advertisements. They like to measure up to their peer group and feel pressurized by the images that they see on screen. This leads to eating disorders, for example, associated with advertisements featuring idealized thinness. It is extremely important for parents to inculcate a feeling of high self esteem in their children, so that they can see the advertisements as a part of the commercial world. They should be made to understand the techniques used in advertising and taught to judge things themselves. sorry for my spelling errors

Television advertising aimed directly at children should be banned or regulated. "Give me a child from any background and I'll turn him into anything you want- a scientist, politician, or even a criminal." - American psychologist Edward Chance Tolman. "These methods are used today by advertisers to turn children into consumers." According to catholiceducation.org, the average American child ages 2-11 watches 1,197 minutes of television each week. That is almost 20 hours of television! In those 20 hours, kids age 2-11 see approximately 140 food advertisements. In a year, children ages 2-11 watch about 1,040 hours of television and see about 7,280 food advertisements. There are many important reasons why television advertising directed at kids needs to be regulated. Reason: 1. Research has confirmed that the media shows a close conformity between children's tastes, perceived needs, actions, and the programs they watch. ï¿½ About four years ago, a 7 year old girl drowned trying to find Bikini Bottom (SpongeBob Squarepants) in the ocean. In another unrelated event, a few kids jumped off of buildings in an attempt to fly like the fictional hero Superman. Both accounts resulted in the death of all involved. ï¿½ If children allow themselves to believe in talking sea creatures and flying human beings merely from watching television programs, one may conclude that children will believe that, for example, the energy drink Red Bull really does give you wings. Therefore, they will also be easily persuaded to buy certain products that are advertised during their favorite shows. 2. Some children don't understand that advertisers are only trying to get them to buy their products. ï¿½ According to AAP ( American Academy of Pediatrics) children under the age of 8 are developmentally unable to understand the intent of ads and simply accept them as true. 3. Even in learning environments, children are exposed to advertisements from a very young age. ï¿½ According to Mediachannel.org, 70% of child care centers use television on a typical day. ï¿½ Channel 1 news broadcast is free to schools who promise students will watch commercials. 42% of channel 1's 12 minute broadcast is ads and fillers. The teen audience for channel 1 is 50 times greater than the MTV audience. From kidshealth.org 4. Television is the main point in a young child's life and a good percentage of airtime is spent on advertisements. ï¿½ Children in the U.S. spend more time watching television than any other activity, including attending school. The only activity that a child does more than watching television is sleeping. In a year, a child spends about 900 hours at school and around 1,150 hours watching television.-Kidshealth.org ï¿½ Every 4 hours of television contain over 100 commercials. ( Minn. Star Tribune.) ï¿½ Even children as little as 1 year old watch about 6 hours of television per week. 54% of 4-6 year olds chose to watch more television instead of spending time with their fathers. (Catholiceducation.org) 5. A good percent of advertisements directed at children are for unhealthy food products. ï¿½ 11 out of 19 commercials per hour are about food. This averages to about 1 food commercial every five minutes. 43.6% of these commercials are for fats, oils, and sweets. Fast food is 11% of ads during children's television and none of these are for the "healthy" options.-Theprenentioninstitute.org

The malicious and misleading advertisements of today first of all i want to say that on what basis you say that are that advertisements of today are malicious .its totally wrong because in present scenerio there is a high competition between the companies to sell their products in the market and advertisement gives the chance to show the quality of products of companies and it should be .if philips is a good electronic company then oreva and havells also may be .......the price of bulb is 20% lower than philips and gives same quality ty.if it will not be done then dominating companies will play game of capitalism what they want.......through the advertisement most of the people become curious to know about the product and try to learn information this shows transparency in market and incourages the market environment .....again it improves the quality of product due to everyone wants to fill the desire of costumer.........

Advertisements Let me begin with some opening statements. Advertisement is a big business. One that is extraordinarily important to both our society as well as our economy. My opponent is attempting to show that Advertisements are detrimental to society in a way such that they should be removed. If he believes otherwise, he should clarify in his next post because although he is the instigator, he has not submitted any proposal. Thus, I must assume he wishes to ban advertisement. This carries some significant problems. First of all, what counts as advertisement? No media ads? Set monetary amounts? Simply showing the brand logo on your product is a form of advertisement. Where do we draw that line? In addition, products are made and sold, how should a company spread the news about their product if not advertisement? Should advertisement be controlled by the government? Having said that, I shall respond to my opponent's points one by one. 1. People cannot ignore unwanted information Everything around us is information. Colors, flavors, odors, textures, we are sensory creatures that are constantly receiving information. Whether it is advertisement or not, it shouldn't matter. Another point on this matter: most forms of interaction between the potential consumer and the advertisement is through a medium that provides a service at a cost. Part of the requirement for such a service is to be subject to advertisement, otherwise the medium would not exist. Television programs are a good example. Internet websites are another. These are necessary methods of financing whatever people *do* want to see. 2. Advertisements brainwash people and limit their decision-making abilities. I find this argument to be absurd. People's decision-making abilities are compromised far more from other things than from advertising. Society, environment, peer pressure, these things all impact our personalities and how we grow and think. My opponent cites several examples as to how advertisement impacts society. Examples such as superficiality and materialism. May I point out that all his examples and far, FAR worse are applicable to the television, magazine, publishing, news, and film industries. Compared to advertisement, the "brainwashing" impact of advertisement is almost nil. If my opponent is going to use this point, I suggest he argue for the ban of all media first, because this simply isn't going to cut it. Having countered my opponent's arguments, I now pose evidence in support of advertisements. Advertisement is one of the most important industries in existence. Advertisement generates demand in people, and people with demand will buy. People who buy will give money to those who make, who will use that money to buy as well. These are the basics of a free market economy, and especially in dire economic times, Advertisement is an invaluable tool to get the stock market back on its feet. Advertisement is nowhere NEAR as evil as my opponent makes it out to be. Advertisement appeals to people in order to convince them. There is no way for advertisement to be used as a way to brainwash people because unless it coincides with their beliefs (at least partially) it will be an ineffective campaign. My opponent's arguments for Advertisement being the downfall of man is simply ludicrous. Let's set aside the fact that sex and violence and immorality is far more rampant in dozens of other forms of media. Man's desires, hopes, dreams, beliefs, morals, these are never under direct control of a person. Each person is simply an amalgamation of external force mixed with internal biology. It is impossible to avoid "intellectual contamination". No man is a free thinker to himself, outside bias will always exist. I thank the audience and await my opponent's response. . http://tools.devshed.com... . http://www.blurtit.com...

Advertisements Do More Harm Than Good Advertising leads to many people being overwhelmed by the endless need to decide between competing d...

Advertisements promote healthy products and lifestyles. Advertisers don't have the good of society in mind when they do their work - they only care about making profit. This means that they regularly advertise unhealthy or harmful things. Fast food adverts are a large part of the reason so many children are obese. Researchers have found that children aged 6-13 who were shown commercials for junk food were more likely to pick meals that were bad for them1. The adverts just try to make children eat as much bad food as possible without any concern for the health costs. 1 Junk Food Harmful for Kids. Hindustan Times

Restrictions reach out to the general population How can it be that only tobacco companies get singled out and told not to advertise their products, while many others (such as prescription drugs) are allowed to market their products? There are many products which are hugely dangerous, take alcohol for example. Whilst drinks can be advertised, in the UK they must also carry a drink responsibly warning. Why can tobacco companies not do the same especially when you consider how much more immediate the danger from alcohol is? improve this

Advertising helps us choose between different goods. Advertising has a positive role to play in modern society, helping us choose between competing goods. Many adverts are drawing our attention to products with new features, for example more powerful computers, telephones which are also cameras and music players, or foods with added vitamins. Other adverts try to compete on price, helping us seek out the cheapest or best value products. In most cases advertising does not make us go shopping – we would be planning to buy food, clothes, gifts and entertainment anyway. What advertising does is to help us make better decisions about how to spend our money, by giving us more information about the choices available.

Advertising: Manipulation or Information I am new to debate.org so I apologize for any mistakes. I would like to propose a debate on the idea of Advertising: Manipulation or Information. Currently, media have acquired great importance. But each of us more than once observed that, in discussing the same event, different sources give different facts. Advertising distributes information in order to attract the attention of potential consumers. In my opinion, in a society, where the dominant value is to maximize profits, advertising will turn into manipulation. Manipulation can be either direct violence information. On the one hand, a person has to do what he does not want to. On the other, what he does seem to be voluntary, but that eventually brings him some damage. Advertising, filling our media reflects both of these option. Information violence manifests itself in the way of advertising. If it was carried out in a strictly fixed time and the viewer could freely choose. In fact, it is a most unexpected way intrudes into other programs, preventing their normal and full perception. The same thing on the Internet: you just think of the text, when different advertise appear that can't immediately remove it. It's not all the information I want to say, but I hope, that I have made my idea clear. Thank you for your time, I hope you accept this challenge.

Advertising leads to many people being overwhelmed by the endless need to decide between competing d... Advertising has a positive role to play in modern society, helping us choose between competing goods. Many adverts are drawing our attention to products with new features, for example more powerful computers, telephones which are also cameras and music players, or foods with added vitamins. Other adverts try to compete on price, helping us seek out the cheapest or best value products. In most cases advertising does not make us go shopping – we would be planning to buy food, clothes, gifts and entertainment anyway. What advertising does is to help us make better decisions about how to spend our money, by giving us more information about the choices available.

This policy enhances the role of drug reps and advertising, at the cost of evidence-based medicine By allowing anyone who is critically ill to use experimental drugs you enhance the already dubious role of drug company reps: especially in the USA, (where doctors do not operate under the NHS guidance found in the UK), there is already a problem of patterns of prescription being altered by the techniques of drug reps, rather than by evidence1. Where drugs are for sale before they have completed testing, there is even less evidence available, and therefore less ability for physicians to contest the claims of either reps or their own patients (who may have heard of the drug during their own research). Hence you magnify the problem of potentially ineffective of even harmful prescription. 1 Harris, Gwyn, ‘Pharmaceutical representatives do influence physician behaviour’, Family Practice, Vol.26 2009, pp.169-70, http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/3/169.full

The Importance of Advertisement There shouldn't be any complications, and I thank him for his consideration of my suggestion. My argument against the importance of advertising consists of two main parts: first, that advertising is unnecessary for things which are truly significant; second, that advertising causes harm within a society.1) Advertising is unnecessary for that which is important. Human beings are acutely aware of what they need. A starving man will actively seek out food, or the means to acquire food. The same is true for people in social situations. If something is significant to a particular culture, a person who is a part of that culture is will invariably seek to acquire whatever it is that is culturally significant. A good example of this in our society is transportation. The need for mechanical transportation of some kind, whether by car, bike, or some other method, has become a necessity in our culture as our cities become more spread out and the need to traverse larger and larger distances as quickly as possible becomes more prevalent. As such, people invariably seek out efficient modes of transportation. This can also be seen in an ideological sense, particularly with regard to atheists and homosexuals in the United States. While some of these individuals never experience any particular drive to conform to the social norms of faith and "traditional relationships", the majority of atheists and homosexuals in America feel, at some point in their lives, a drive to conform to the culturally significant ideas of faith and "traditional relationships". Now, what does this mean for advertising? Well, advertising is in many cases, argued to be a method of providing the public with information. However, if people are already seeking out the things that they need, advertising is entirely unnecessary for necessities such as food, water, power, and so forth. Further, if people are already seeking out what they need to be successful in a cultural, financial, or intellectual standpoint, advertising becomes even less important, as people involved in particular activities will already have knowledge of what is necessary for their particular field. I can foresee my opponent disputing this point. After all, what about culturally significant items such as the iPod? It is entirely true that the success of the iPod (and similar items) was due in large part to advertising. However, at the time the iPod was released, would it really have been considered a necessity? It wouldn't have even been exceptionally significant in a cultural sense at that time. And this brings us to advertising's single aspect of importance: advertising creates "necessities", as my opponent has defined them. Advertising takes things which would otherwise be insignificant and/or unnecessary, and through marketing tools, makes these things into cultural "necessities". Advertising for food is unnecessary; and yet we see ads for food services every day. Why? Because the brands (McDonald's, Chili's, etc) are attempting to become "culturally significant", and in doing so, draw customers to spend money at their particular locations. There is no particular need to eat at McDonald's; indeed, there are more than a few compelling reasons not to eat there. However, their ads work to provide what is essentially propaganda for a particular product while ignoring everything negative aspect of the product. Take, for instance, the Cheetos ad at the top of this post. Nothing in the ad gives you any information about the product other than that Cheetos are something which you consume. It presents little valuable information on the subject, but rather is intended to attach the idea of the brand to something entertaining. As such, we can see advertising at work, not providing information, or providing any particularly important service regarding the product, but rather working to get the consumer to spend their money on something which they have no need for. And any potentially useful information an ad provides about a product is also placed among a series of biases and marketing tools intended to encourage the consumer to buy one product in particular as opposed to a competing product. These biases and marketing strategies make it difficult to perceive particularly useful information, and result in ads which are often misleading, or at the very least, completely useless in determining differences between products. . http://www.youtube.com...2) Advertising does demonstrable harm2a) Advertising promotes excessive and unnecessary spendingDo you really need to spend extra money on the iPhone 4 when you already have an iPhone 3? Do you really need that new car when yours still runs just fine? Advertising is aimed at one thing in particular: the consumer's wallet. If the consumer is not spending money, the advertising is not working as it should. However, for some products, this presents a problem. Consumers already have products which can perform the same basic functions as the newer products a company may be producing. As such, a company's ad campaigns must, at times, focus on not only promoting a particular product, but also to convince the public that the old product is obsolete. This ultimately leads to consumers spending excessive amounts of money to buy products which they do not actually need. Add that to hard economic times, and it should be fairly obvious why this unnecessary spending is harmful.2b) Advertising promotes spending on harmful products"I'm Lovin' It". The motto of McDonald's. The advertising for McDonald's tends to show exceptionally happy people taking a bite out of a Big Mac, or happily consuming a McFlurry. And all these people look healthy. And yet, if you go to a McDonald's, what you see is obviously different. The majority of regular customers at McDonald's and other fast food chains are exceptionally unhealthy. They tend to be overweight; many are diabetic or pre-diabetic. Most all of them are at high risk of heart disease. And they are all spending their money on food products (I use the term loosely) which are slowly but surely killing them. McDonald's advertising shows none of this. There is no warning that every Big Mac you eat gets you one step closer to a heart attack at the age of 30. Advertising for things like this is often misleading, and in the case of the food market, misleading advertising can be extremely harmful.2c) Advertising is damaging to happiness within a societyWhat is the best thing about TiVo and DVR? Is it that you can re-watch programs over and over again? Or pause shows so you don't miss anything? These things are nice, but the greatest thing about DVR technology is simply this: the ability to skip TV ads. This was actually a major concern back when TiVo was first released (. http://arstechnica.com...). But the fact is, most people don't want to view ads when they are trying to watch TV. The fact that DVR makes watching ads unnecessary has been one of the biggest draws to the technology, simply because people hate ads. If you need more convincing that ads are damaging to a society's happiness and well being, take the example of Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 2007, the city banned almost all forms of outdoor advertising. Despite this, the city is still a booming metropolis. And the population of the city has overall been pleased with the results. The elimination of outdoor ads even brought attention to more pressing problems in the society, such as the prevalence of shantytowns in some areas of the city. (. http://www.adbusters.org...)In conclusion, advertising is necessary to our society in the same way that cancerous cells are necessary to a person with cancer: the person wouldn't be the same without them, but really, would that be such a bad thing?

Advertisements Do More Harm Than Good People cannot just choose to ignore advertising, because advertisers use many underhand methods to g...