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

There are those who would argue that advertising has become so pervasive, it hardly has any effect anymore. In my opinion, while people have developed habits to ignore ads, they still achieve their desired effect on the whole. Firstly, the main argument against the power of ads is they can be avoided. For instance, online advertising is a good example of this. Users rarely click on or even glance at a website’s combination of pop-up ads, banners, mailing list requests, and auto-playing video ads. These have become so common that consumers have developed the unconscious practice of skipping ads on YouTube, quickly closing pop-ups and scrolling past in-page advertising. As a result, advertisers have tried to counter this by making their marketing less conspicuous, as with ads that resemble real posts on social media sites like Instagram, but their sheer frequency means they can be easily identified and do not stand out. However, despite the best efforts of users, advertisements are still effective. Most people ignore most ads most of the time. This is something that advertisers expect and build into their marketing budgets. These days marketing is the major source of earnings for the largest companies in the world, including Facebook and Google, because of more sophisticated targeted ads. Savvy marketers can sort through demographics and cross-test content for different audiences until they hone in on the most efficient advertising solutions. They can then replicate these ads and invest more money into the well-performing ones, with the financial justification coming from clicks and sales conversions. Therefore, advertising today, in reality, is far more effective than at any point in the past because of the raw data available to target potential consumers and the concrete feedback on successful ads. In conclusion, despite the best efforts of ordinary citizens to circumvent advertising, technological innovations have given marketers more power than ever before. This portends badly for future generations and it is important that lawmakers enact regulations on marketers.