Question

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

These days, the competition among manufactures are getting harsher and harsher, which has led to the expansion of advertisement campaign in the business world. Some people believe that consumer goods that become the bestsellers are chiefly the results of advertisements but not truly meet the demand of buyers. Personally, I support this idea to some certain extents, but I still think that personal choice is the most powerful influence when consumers have to make their decisions on their wanted budgets. 
On one hand, advertising services have become one of the most effective tools for companies to draw buyers' attention to their products with the assistance of new technology. It is a obvious fact that mass media and the Internet are covering almost every corners of this world, which helps the announcements about all flows of goods to every household and individual. Additionally, producers nowadays can take advantages of the fame of celebrities by inviting them to embody their products so as to attract their fans. Companies have never stopped competing to show the most appealing offer to the consumers via thousands of pieces of advertisements, even misleading information just to achieve more profits. Usually, customers will place their confidence on the illustration they witness and, ultimately, buy them. 
On the other hand, advertising is generally not as strong as personal mind. As usual, if the need does not rise, people will hardly spend on unimportant goods. For example, a smart phone brand have introduced their novel model of mobile phone which serves a variety of functions, but you have just bought a new one some days ago, so are you ready to waste another amount of money for another one? Moreover, people usually have persisted tendency to products that they have acquaintance with and feel unnecessary to experience new things. Advertising, in these cases, become inefficient. Another factor is related to spending habits of customers as when they find the good are too expensive and unaffordable, they will not try to waste their money on it no matter how beneficial it is. In other words, the decision to buy a budget or not depends mostly on the customers' sense, not the invitations from advertisements. 
To conclude, advertising is an essential part of trading business. However, it is not the determining factor of high sales, but the demand from buyers will decide the popularity of a product as outside force such as advertisements cannot replace practical requirements for a satisfying service and goods.

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Answer 1

It is noticeable that advertising campaigns are staple methods to push up sales of consumer goods. However, it is claimed that these activities make too much influence in customers’ behaviors than the true needs of them. While I agree that commercial ads play an important role in this cut-throat competitive market, I tend toward the belief of human’s mind will intimately take control of any purchasing decisions.

On the one hand, I can understand arguments claim commercial ads. It is likely that people tend to pay a lot attention on advertisings which usually bring very vivid detail functions and natures of the products or services. Consumer will need to accumulate as enough as possible information before spending money for any purchased items. Equally important, companies also widely use advertisings when launching a new range of products or services which either be the first time appearing in the market or an improvement from the existing items. These high-invested campaigns usually impact significantly on customer mindset, as a result, drive effectively customer choices when they already had demands. As a stuck example, CocaCola is evaluated as one of the companies that have the most effective advertising campaigns for many years which maintenance it as a top-of-mind brand name in beverage market.

On the other hand, I stay on my idea that nothing is more powerful than human’s demand itself. First and foremost, Advertising, as its natural meaning, is the tool to convey the messages of the manufacturers to customers but hardly can change people demand. People usually tend to use the information that they got from commercials in evaluating some available alternatives rather than to push them buy an unnecessary item. Moreover, there are a wide range of other factors that even take more significant influences in buyers’ decisions such as products’ quality, displaying, and historical experiences of customer about the products… A smart customer will base on and analysis many aspects before any spending, especially for luxury items. It is undeniable that quality but not others, is the most powerful motive for a purchasing action. We can take Iphone as a typical example. The budget that Apple has spending on advertising is much less than it’s biggest competitor – Samsung but the sales of every new product is usually higher.

All things considered, I strongly hold onto the view that even advertising is crucial for companies to gain over from competitors but not the most important factor influents in customer’s behaviors.