Ads of the Past - Appropriate or Not ?

Looking at these ads really surprised me. Those ads are even more exaggerated then the ones that are shown in our society today! People would actually do ANYTHING just to get consumers to buy and use their product. The first ad that says: Eat! Eat! Eat! & Always Stay Thin! It's advertising that you should eat all you want and you'll stay thin by eating tapeworm. The ad shows people the wrong message. Tapeworm is harmful to our bodies. It is parasites that remain in our intestines for a period of time. Tapeworms in our intestine will absorb all our nutrients and start to multiply and spread to other parts of our bodies; lungs and will require urgent medical care. Tapeworm in our bodies results in our health deteriorating, numbness in our face, a blurry vision, seizures, allergic reactions, bacterial infection, and high fever. Eating tapeworm just to stay thin is not a good thing to do. The first ad gives out a wrong impression to those who read it. Staying thin isn't most important thing in this world.

The second ad that shows a man and a woman. The man is smoking and breating the smoke on the woman. According to the ad, men who smoke will always have women following them. It encourages men to smoke, so they will be popular amoung the women. Smoking is not healthy for you body and it doesn't make women follow you around. Smoking for a long period of time will cause damage to your lungs, mouth and fingers and may also result in death. The ad also gives us the wrong impression; smoking will not have women follow you around.

The third ad shows a family who is really happy because they eat lard. Lard is the fat in a pig. Just eating lard is unhealthy for your body because there is a lot of fat in it. In order to maintain a healthy and happy life, it's important to eat a variety of food and not just lard. These days, lard is sometimes used for baking, but it is known that it's more unhealthy than butter. Just eating lard is not a healthy thing to do.

The fourth ad shows a doctor advertising a certain brand of cigarettes called "Camels." As a doctor, he should not be encouraging people to smoke. He should know that it's not good for people to smoke. Those who smoke would cause health problems. If their health problems reach to a certain extent, it may even result in death.

I was really surprise that these ads were allowed to be shown to the public. If it was today's society, those ads would not be able to be shown to the public. There would have been groups that are strongly opposing to the release of those ads because they display a wrong example to children. What I think that have allowed these ads to be shown to the public would be company's bribing advertising companies to show their ad(s) to the public. These ads suggest that the society in the past was very lenient. They didn't care about what they were showing to the public. As long as they could earn money, that was all that mattered. That is somewhat like today's society. Even though, some of them may be as exaggerated and show people a bad example, there are still some restrictions. In the modern society, people already know that ads are mostly exaggerate about their products, so they would know not to believe much of the ad.