Kartika Pemilia L
SP5
The ending of Second World War began the First New Era of World Order and the ending of Cold War meant the Second New Era of Wprld Order. In these Eras, the world became smaller and smaller bacause of very fast flow of information.
Reaching one place to another place we use information technology like the intenet, TV, satelites, radio, cell phones, and so on. The flow of information bring “advertisement culture”. It has been supported by the rise of many factories which produce and sell goods. Every businessman and owner of factories competes with one another to to attract consumers. They ask advertising agencies to make the best, effective promotions which are then published on the internet, TV, radio, and even on the street using electronic banners, billboards, and so on. The tight competition among them often causes negative results if not properly regulated.
First of all, the negative effect of bad advertisements can influence people’s thought and behaviour. The moral ethics should become the parameter in making good advertisements. There are a lot of bad advertisements in Indonesia which include pornography, sex, and violence. They try to make connections between sex and the product itself. They show something vulgar and taboo like pornography, free sex and impulsive people making love (the words, the sounds, and the visuals). Ironically, they are shown them at any time, not just at appropriate times. For example : there is advertisement for breast lotion (a lotion that can make women’s breast size increase). This advertisement show a woman breast very clearly and close-up, and it’s even in the aftrenoon (17.00-19.00 pm) when the children are usually watching TV.
Based on research, children have a strong tendency to imitate what they hear and see unreservedly. There are many cases that show how many children become adults befor their time. They have the wrong perceptions about sex and want to try it.
Another negative impact of bad unregulated advertisements is the rise of unfair competition among advertisements agencies/businessmen. Each product has adventages and disadventages. So, not slandering other products is an important rule that has to be obeyed. We often see advertisements showing disagreement with the adventages of other products. Thus, they make the opposite slogans to counter them, such us : “our product does not just has good quality to prevent illness, but also secures it.So, please don’t buy product A which can just prevent the illness but can’t secure it”. Indeed, they blurred the real name of the other product they mentioned, but they mentioned the slogans of product A advertisement and made the opposite one. As a result, the consumers will know about “the blame product”.
From the phenomenon above, I think the goverment has to make tight laws to regulate advertisements and they have to handle it seriously. Metering out punishments like : closingdown the stubborn advertisements agencies/factories or asking them to pay a lot of money to the goverment are the best ways to solve this problem. But of course we have to replace “the corrupt officials” inside the goverment first. I’m sure there will be a few good men (although he mass media never exposes them) in the next period.