Food Advertising In today's society, advertising in magazines and newspapers is seen everywhere. Whether the topic of the advertisement is a car or the new brand of shoes, all advertisements share the same goal. The goal is to attract the viewer's attention and convince him that he needs the product shown. The food industry is well known for its use of advertising. Food companies in the United States spend billions of dollars each year creating advertisements to promote their products. Every part of any advertisement has a purpose, and each company uses different strategies in their advertisements to convey their message to potential consumers. A common strategy of advertisements is to claim that the food is healthy. In many cases, if a person can get a product at a very low price, they are more likely to purchase the product. This is no different for food. The Wendy's ad I found is a perfect example of this strategy. In this ad, Wendy's advertised their new "4 for $4" menu option (Appendix B). In the meal the customer received a hamburger, fries, chicken nuggets and a drink. Another company that advertises its affordable prices is McDonald's. The particular advertisement I found was for their Filet-o-Fish sandwich which costs only two dollars (Appendix B). Cheap food advertising only helps the cheap food revolution. I think an interesting aspect of this advertising technique is that both examples I found involved fast food. Fast food restaurants are known for their fairly cheap food and they make sure consumers realize this. However, cheap prices are a good selling point for fast food restaurants. When prices are this low for certain products, a wide variety of people can purchase food. It opens up a wide variety of customers which makes restaurants so popular nowadays. Food in America, in particular, is cheaper than almost anywhere. As TIME writer Bryan Walsh explained, this is because the price of corn has dropped dramatically allowing buyers to make food cheap (Thompson). So, if fast food is so cheap, what about healthier options? Healthier options have actually become more expensive. “With one dollar today you can buy 1,200 calories of chips and 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit” (Thompson). Food options at fast food restaurants are also typically over-portioned, high in fat, carbohydrates and sodium. When customers choose to eat meals because they are cheap, they are demonstrating an eating style that is becoming increasingly relevant in today's society. This eating style is gastro-anomia. Gastronomy is the “condition of unsatisfactory and meaningless food consumption and the loss of pleasure obtained from food” (Eating Culture). In many cases, advertisers do not inform customers of the poor quality of their food, but rather encourage them to purchase the food at the lowest price of the products.