We are bombarded by many advertisements every day..........we cannot live without advertisements but we must be careful how we live with them.

We are bombarded by many advertisements every day. Vendors try all means and ways to gain our attention and sell us their products or services. Advertisements appear everywhere; on television programs, radios, in the papers, magazines, pamphlets and so on.

Advertisements are actually very useful though we sometimes feel annoyed when they interrupt our favorite television programs. They provide us with free information on the products and services. There are two types of advertisements. The informative advertisements are the ones which provide us with the details of the products or services. This information is especially useful if the product or service is new. For instance, when we need to buy a computer, advertisements describing the latest models and their different functions would be extremely helpful. However, only a minority of the advertisements are informative ones. Many of them belong to the second category -- the persuasive kind. These advertisements not only tell us more about the products, at the same time, they persuade customers to buy them by claiming that their products are superior to the rivalry ones. These claims may sometimes be untrue.

Besides being informative and persuasive, advertisements also help to subsidize the prices of magazines and newspapers. Our newspapers are sold at a low price of about one dollar, owing to the advertisements in the papers; otherwise, the price would have been higher.

While advertisements can be good helpers for shopping, they do have their shortcomings. Most advertisements aim to sell only. Faults of the products or services are usually hidden from the consumers. Hence, sometimes, we feel deceived if the product or service we bought does not turn out the way the advertisements claim to be.

Sometimes, advertisements by rival competitors can get very intensive, especially when there are many firms producing similar products. One common example is the washing powder. There are so many advertisements for the different brands that customers sometimes get confused over what they should buy. Furthermore, having more advertisements would mean that the production cost of the firm would be increased. These rises in cost are usually passed on to the consumers in the form of higher prices.

Hence, in conclusion, though I do advocate advertisements, I do not deny their flaws. Without them, we might have to buy things based on incomplete information or go through more complicated ways before getting to know the products or services. On the other hand, too many advertisements also complicate our buying decisions. So I would say that we cannot live without advertisements but we must be careful how we live with them.

Summary: There are two types of advertisements. Informative advertisements provide consumers information about the products or services. They are especially useful when we are purchasing new products. The second kind is the persuasive ones which provide us with products information and also persuade us to buy them by claiming the superiority of their products. Advertisements also benefit readers of newspapers and magazines by helping to subsidize the prices. One disadvantage of advertisements is that they sometimes aim to sell only and cover up the flaws of the advertised products. Consumer may sometimes get confused over buying decisions when too many advertisements are advertise. Advertising also raises the production costs which in turn increases the prices of the products too.