William Guevara
Sara Jacobson
2023 Fall Term (1) Composition of Individual & Society FIQWS 10108
MEDIA
Media advertisements are everywhere; they could be on the phone you are holding right now or on the TV that you are watching right now. No matter where you look, it is there; you cannot hide from it. The advertisements you see could be true or not. But the more someone is
informed about a certain topic, the more they can recognize what’s real or fake. But media advertisements were around for a long time and changed the viewpoint of society. An example of this would be the KGB spreading false information about aid. The daily ad changed the
political advertisements. The Benetton’s ads used images of social issues like terrorism, racism, and environmental issues, and lastly, a mental health awareness campaign that encouraged the reader or listener to ask for help. With these ads in mind, they may not directly connect to each other, but they all serve a purpose.

“Long before Facebook, the KGB spread false information about AIDS”, by Jasmine Garsd Originally published through wNYC, it talks about the discovery of a blueprint for an ad campaign that says that AIDS was a biological weapon by the Americans. But this was during a time of no internet, in which they didn’t have Facebook to rapidly spread false information like people do in the 21st century. It all started with the spread of documents through different
channels, such as newspaper publishers and radio broadcasters, saying that the AIDS epidemic was a biological warfare started by the Americans. But that was far from the truth, as more research was done. But how does this connect with Facebook? Well, in the article, there was a “Facebook purge,” and it says, “it protested racial injustice and police brutality. That’s the thing: The page might have been fake. But many of the incidents it spoke of were very real. And so
were the feelings about them.” which shows that even if it was fake, part of it was real, and that’s how the media portrays things now; part of what they say could be true, but the rest is fake. With false information being able to spread a lot faster through Facebook than it does in television and radio broadcasting, like it originally did with the KGB spreading disinformation about AIDS.

The Daisy ad campaign originally started in 1964 in the United States presidential election of President Lydon B. Johnson, who was a Democrat and was going up against a Republican, which was Barry Goldwater. This ad featured a little girl who was plucking out petal from a daisy, where all of a sudden a countdown appeared and an explosion followed, with President Johnson’s voice being able to be heard and emphasizing that this could happen if Goldwater
was elected, signifying that Goldwater was not fit to be president of the United States and that johnson was a better fit. The ad targeted the fears and anxieties of people who knew what happened during the Cold War era and were afraid a vote for Goldwater could lead to a nuclear fallout. The ad did an excellent job of appealing to other people’s emotions and conveying a powerful message at the same time. This is what led Lyndon B. Johnson to win the 1964 election.

The Benetton ads of the 1960s were well known but not in an effective way, since a lot of these ads created controversy and thought-provoking advertisements. The 1960s Benetton ads had some advertising characteristics; for example, Benetton showed diverse backgrounds and emphasized the idea of diversity in his ads, which also aimed to have people celebrate their differences that they have with one another and show that even if they were different, they
were still humans. But this wasn’t the only ad campaign he created; he also had imagery of social issues that polluted humankind, like racism, war, and human rights being violated. These images were used to convey a message and get people’s attention because, without this
controversy, no one would bat an eye at it.

Mental health awareness is a serious problem here in the United States, but there’s a lot of ad campaigns that target those with mental health issues and ask them to seek some form of help, like “Mental Health Minute,” which is based in the United Kingdom and is a radio broadcast that has a minute of reflection for those who suffer from mental health issues. They encourage the listeners to seek help, and it includes messages from other people that help elevate the
listener and help them get motivated to ask for help from others.

With these advertisements in mind, what is the issue here? How did these advertisements impact society? Well, first of all, with the KGB wanting to spread false information on where AIDS originally came from without the use of social media, they use other platforms such as
television, radio broadcasters, and newspapers. This was a time when Facebook wasn’t a thing, and Facebook is a big company now but is used to spread false information, which could lead to multiple individuals believing these ads and easily spreading this information with a click of a button. If Facebook were invented back then, the idea of AIDS being a biological weapon created by the American people would create widespread panic and cause multiple people to
get hurt. That’s why people are informed of what’s real and do their research before going into full-blown panic. Back then, anything could be considered trustworthy; that’s why documents created by the KGB were published and broadcast on television without fact-checking. This changed how society views an ad, always questioning it.

With the Daisy ad campaign, it changed how political ads could be advertised since the Daisy ad used other people’s emotions and their fears to convey a message: if Goldwater were to become president, then the United States would experience a nuclear bomb. And it worked; this made people remember what happened during the cold, and the ad played on this emotion, which ultimately led to Johnson winning the presidential campaign. But that wasn’t he only thing that the ad campaign led to; it also led to discussions about the regulations of political ads and what the contents of the ads should be limited to, because without these regulations, panic and fear can be used to manipulate the viewers. That’s why guidelines and monitoring were placed on advertisements.

Benetton Advertisements affected society like no other, promoting diversity by having different races of people model each other to represent their ethnic backgrounds. This later had a positive view of the fashion industry. But this wasn’t the only thing it did; it challenged
social norms by having controversial issues appear in his advertisements, and he was able to shed light on them.

These ads all served a purpose, and that was to target a specific audience, whether it was through spreading false information or manipulating human emotion. This different type of advertisement changed how society views them, and some of these ads changed what they were able to advertise later in the future.

CITATION
Garsd, J. (2018, August 22). Long Before Facebook, The KGB Spread Fake News About AIDS. NPR.
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/22/640883503/long-before-facebook-the-kgb-spread-fake-news-about-aids
Schmidt, L. (2023, February 4). Remembering the 90s and the Benetton ads. Luella Schmidt.
https://www.luellaschmidt.com/post/remembering-the-90s-and-the-benetton-ads
Magazine, S. (2016, April 13). How the “Daisy” Ad Changed Everything About Political Advertising.
Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-daisy-ad-changed-everythingabout-political-advertising-180958741/
The Mental Health Minute 2022 | The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge