Training to Decide: Advertisements Mislead

"Because businesses use high-quality advertising to sell low-quality products, schools should give students extensive training in how to make informed decisions before making purchases."

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion expressed above. Support your point of view with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

Reality is in the mind, said a zen master. Perhaps nobody understands this axiom better than corporates who spend more money on their advertisement than their do on their products. In fact, the market has many businesses that use high-quality advertisement to sell low quality products. This makes it important to make people aware about these facts and encourage them to make informed decisions before making purchases so as they are not taken for a ride. And what better place to start this education than school? "Catch them young" should be the motto; to make students aware about the pitfalls of taking advertisement on face value.

This is necessary as advertisements can use a variety of sophisticated tricks to fleece an unsuspecting customer. One of the best used way is positive association- associating the product with something or somebody who has a strong positive image in the mind of the masses. In simpler words it is called "endorsement". The best example I can think of is Pepsi and Coke. Cola products do not have any health value. In fact, they are generally harmful to health as they have a high sugar content and are carbonated. Nevertheless, they manage to sell huge quantities on back of aggressive advertising and endorsements. Despite of being one of the major causes behind obesity and diabetes in US, high-quality advertising helps to sell such a product in high quantities. Clearly, if more awareness would have been brought in from school level, such a scenario could have been avoided.

A similar kind of selling technique is often employed by beauty products. It is impossible to verify if the beautiful celebrities that endorse the products actually use them or if the products actually transform people overnight into something different. Not only the quality of the products is in question, the effect these advertisements have on young mind is bad too. Dove's campaign for real beauty puts this point into perspective that how aggressive advertisements by such company's promotes negative self-image in growing children and puts unnecessary pressure on their minds. This is another case where a training in how to make informed decisions could help save not only the money of parents but also the mind of children. 

There is no end to such examples. The real question is what can be done about it? I sincerely feel giving students extensive training in how to make informed decisions before making purchases is a step in the right direction. Such a step will help them to not become a victim of aggressive marketing techniques employed by companies in order to sell their low-quality products.