For over years we have had advertisements entering our
homes, our spaces and invading our ears and eyes with what they need to sale,
announce, or promote. They have entered our homes by the help of our
television, entered our cars in compliance of the radio, our quiet reading moments
with their imprudence on magazines. Advertisers along with their advertisement have
found all sorts of sneaky ways to reach the consumers and enter our lives in
all sorts of ways. If we really think about this they are all around us trying
to convince us that their product is the best. Honestly we don’t get any rest
from all the advertisements that we see daily. Therefore that is when as
consumers we begin to have less control of our privacy. It is surprisingly
outstanding how advertisers care so much about the consumer’s perspective that
they begin to profile the consumers and in a way analyze a consumers moves, and
by moves I mean the way we shop, where we shop, how much, and with what
companies. Which this makes it easier for all those companies to reach us, the
consumers directly and be able to provide all our attention to what “we need”
and what they are intending to sell.
However, we can’t all blame it on companies that are
invading our privacy with all these advertisements that curiously we need. We
as consumers, have that right of protecting our privacy by certain methods. For
example, there are many more places now that ask for the costumers email in
order to receive discounts, coupons, and notices of when these stores might
have sales or new arrivals, and this is all done by email. An email that
contains for most of us our full name, sometimes address and many times it is
even connected to a social website such as facebook or twitter. To be able to
avoid these types of privacy invasion how about we don’t give our email? Emails
that contains much about us, along with other stores we have already signed up
for. Also like mentioned in, Advertising
Gets Personal by Samuel Greengard if we don’t use any of our credit cards
it is less likely for these companies to follow us and track our shopping.
Luckily we are still able to avoid some of these types of invasion privacies,
however, what will happen later when everything continues to advance and
everything is done by technology and systems that profile the consumers and
follow their shopping procedures to categorize them and “provide their best
products”.
Not only do these advertisers profile us, the consumers,
when we shop for/with their companies and we buy their products, they also
profile us on the way they advertise. On most of their advertisements they
stereotype everything and judge consumers by, their race, gender, or age.
Although these might reflect harmful stereotypes consumers and viewers tend to
be attracted by these commercials and ads and unfortunately it is due to these
harmful stereotypes that we tend to remember the commercials and the
products.
I agree with your point on some of these advertisements being imprudent. I also agree that we, as consumers, have some tools to prevent them from invading our privacy. The fact that we can opt out and not give our emails is a great, simple idea. Customers are always lured with the possibility of saving money, especially in today’s economy, and so they fall prey to this tactic in order to save money. Perhaps retailers should just make the saving offers immediate and without any requirements on our part. I would definitely shop at a retailer that offered random discounts just for shopping at their stores. I would even make it a habit to go to their locations just in case they had a great offer I was not aware of.
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