Capturing minds can be quick; all you need is a billboard with a picture of an item that facilitates the life of the consumer and they’re hooked. Cheap, but it worked for decades. Advertising has positive and negative effects on a society. Advertising effects people by making them buy things that they don’t need with jobs that give them so little or nothing at all. Thoughts of wanting that new sports car in the local newspaper create the temptation to buy it, a girl who masks herself with makeup just to look like a model from a magazine sacrifices everything other than artificial beauty, and a young high school student who’s smoking because of a fad in a music video entitles that student is cooler than everybody else are only some of the effects of advertising. Advertisements try to get consumers to follow what they are advertising or buy a product, sometimes through the use of subliminal messages, celebrity endorsements, or obvious fads. People in society are influenced by most advertisements they see and buy it or talk about what they saw to other people.

Similar to propaganda, advertising is a form of communication used to manipulate the viewer into believing what the product can do for them.  Smoking advertisements have "promoted the continued social acceptability and encouraged the incorrect belief that the majority of people smoke" (Source B). People who smoke may have seen a smoking ad that made it appear as everyone smokes, so they feel they need to fit in and start to smoke. In middle school, my classmates would smoke in the back of the playground during recess when the teacher wasn’t looking. They were the popular kids, and used that credibility to convince other students to smoke with them. I would always see them watch music videos from Lil’ Wayne who advertised that “smoking makes you gangster” and so forth. For them, in order to be cool, you had to smoke. Ads have also made people become paranoid about their looks and how they’re material objects to others. Girls especially have become a victim of advertising. See the hot model on the cover of playboy magazine? It’s not real. It’s a picture created by a computer using the real model but augmented with extra facial outlines.etc. To men, the model is beautiful. To women, some try to emulate her body by purchasing products that are used to enhance a women’s beauty which in reality will do nothing or undergo dangerous techniques that will distort the woman physically and mentally. Young women need and want positive role models, and that the media has thus far neglected its unique opportunity to provide them, and this includes advertising.

Although advertising is similar to propaganda, it also promotes prosperity. In the American Red Cross poster, the band aids are a symbol of courage. Donating blood saves lives, and at the cost of a wound that will heal in a day, anyone could do this to help save a life. Advertising also tells us about important issues such as the benefits of seatbelt use. Wearing seat belts have saved the lives of many people. Advertising helps to promote awareness of health and safety issues.

Advertising can help to save lives, but can also create false images in a consumers mind, making them buy material things that aren't necessities to their life. Society is influenced in every ad that is shown and it helps and ruins society at the same time.