Five ways Society benefits from Advertising are:
1. Generates employment: Advertising provides direct employment to a large number of people engaged in designing, writing, and issuing advertisements. Indirectly, advertising increases employment opportunities by increasing the volume of production and distribution.
2. Standard of living: Advertising improves the standard of living of the people by promoting variety and quality in consumption. It educates people about new uses of products and provides information for developing better ways of life. To quote Franklin D. Roosevelt, the late President of America, “advertising brings to the greatest number of people actual knowledge concerning useful things, it is essentially a form of education and the progress of civilization depends on education.”
3. Sustains the press: Advertising provides an important source of revenue to newspapers, magazines, radio and television. As a result public gets news at lower rates and the circulation of newspapers and magazines increases. Press is the guardian of public opinion and by helping it to remain independent, advertising promotes liberty and democracy in the country.
4. Stimulates research and development: Advertising can be successful only when it is backed by new and better products. To derive maximum benefit from advertising in the competitive market, every producer tries to differentiate his products from the competitive products. Big business firms have research and development departments to develop new products and new uses.
5. Incentive to progress: Advertising motivates people to work hard and earn more to buy new and better products. According to Sir Winston Churchil, “Advertising nourishes the consuming power of man. It creates a desire for better standard of living. It spurs individual exertion and greater production.”
