Does advertising create artificial wants?
Mariya Krasteva

Most companies nowadays perceive advertisements as a way of survival. Big corporations who gained the largest market share in their industry never stopped advertising, because they are not sure what the effect will be and if they do it, how soon they are going to be forgotten. The market has a need for different and innovative ways to entertain and attract customers to buy, but companies are sometimes crossing the line. Whether advertising creates artificial wants is a very controversial issue. The first thought on that issue is that advertisers do really influence consumer’s wants and desires, but is it so?
People differentiate from animals because they are rational human
There are so many products on the market like pills, tea, coffee created for this particular purpose.
What I observed in customer’s behavior a few years ago clearly proves that human beings have inborn wants and sometimes they are willing to sacrifice a lot just to gain what they want. There was one Bulgarian company producing such food supplements advertising them as the best, most efficient, fast and healthy way to get slim. As a result more than fifty customers using that product got in hospital with heart problems during the summer, a few months after the product was introduced. This case was not covered by the media and never became public enough, so I started spreading the word to my friends, family and acquaintances. I succeeded to persuade a most of them that their life is more important and there is a risk for their health. But a few of them never listened to me because the product had results and that was exactly what they wanted. Galbraith would state that the want to be slim is artificial, but all human beings have a free will to decide how they will feel better and have a their own perception of beauty.
Professor Galbraith also suggests that there is a direct dependency between the high production and the constantly increasing wants, I would rather state that there is a dependency between innovation and increasing wants. A good example is Apple’s successful