Advertiser’s Physic Powers

I know as an individual I pay very little attention to what I am actually agreeing to when I click the “accept the terms and agreements” button.  I am simply trying to continue on the internet to do whatever I am trying to accomplish.  I do not realize what I am giving these company’s permission to do and how what they chose to do will affect my life.  

It is once I start out surfing the internet, doing research for a term paper, and end up on a website that sells clothing, that I realize what these companies are doing.  By selling my search history, and the past online stores I have shopped at, they are able to make very accurate guesses on the clothes that may grab my attention. With these accurate guesses, they put up advertisements on the side of my screen that without a doubt-draw me in every time.  They also always seem to find the perfect time to place these ads on my screen.  They seem to be reading my mind, guessing exactly when I want to be procrastinating-and they make the procrastination as easy as the click of a button.

These ads are using the common ad technique of repetition.  The more I see this ad the more I am apt to allow it to distract me.  Often times these ads also use the time/pressure exigency.  By claiming there is a sale that only lasts a day, the brands seem to get me every time.  Another example of the time/pressure exigency, that I find myself repeatedly falling for, happened just today.  When I added a bathing suite to my cart online, in italic print the store wrote “only a few left.”  Immediately, I felt more inclined to buy it off of impulse, not for the sake of having the swim suite itself, but to save myself from having it run out, robbing me of the opportunity to buy it if I later decided I truly wanted it.