Marketing and Advertising - When is it enough?? + Conspiracy

Hi all, first time post

First of all thanks everyone I've talked to for being so interesting. I really like this community and hope to stick around!

I've searched around, and found some forum threads relating to advertising a specific product, but not a general conspiracy regarding advertising and marketing. Sorry if I'm wrong, no disrespect to any OP that may have had the same idea.

Of course, it's no secret that advertising is everywhere. It's in our homes, our cars, our place of work. It's in the music we listen to and the movies we watch. It's flooded the internet and invades our computers. It comes over the radio and tv's. It is massively prevalent in todays society.

So when is enough going to be enough?

For me it was about ten years ago, just before viral videos came out. Around 1999/2000 was my maximum saturation point for advertising. I was at least receptive to their ideas.

Flash forward to today and it seems the dial has been turned up to 11. The amount of advertising has multiplied greatly, and the methods used to market a product have reached a very underhanded level. I feel like I'm being lied to every time I turn on the TV (well, I know I'm being lied to - after all that's what tv does these days).

I greet new products with disdain, knowing the level of marketing that each and every product that is released today goes thru. The soulless focus groups. The endless meetings conducted by people who feel it is necessary to promote an "image or idea" rather then just telling the truth.

Now for a conspiracy part:

I'm not expressing that any one group or person has decided to crank up the advertising level and invade every moment of our lives (Although technically it would be possible, but without hard evidence it would be pointless to claim), possibly with a harmful agenda.

I'm thinking that it's a sub-conscious 'push' by all of us (them marketing, us accepting) specifically in relation and reaction to the current world events and worries. All this pressure goes into a person and it has to come out somewhere. Gratification and fantasy are easy outlets. Both are what advertisers sell today. It's just the same as a woman getting her hair done after a relationship break up. Crisis invokes gratification. Just realized how bad that example sounds Sorry if I offended anyone with my astute over simplification of women! If it helps, I'm getting over a break up myself and the first thing I did was get a hair cut. And I'm a guy.

But I digress

It's kind of a hard feeling to express, maybe it's just enough when weighted with all the other worries people have at the moment. Maybe enough to make people seek new ways in satisfying their person. An marketer can sell a product, as an idea, and a lie at the same time:

"Buy this shoe (product) and you can play basketball (idea) and you'll be cool (lie)"

Buying that shoe to the right person could be like triple gratification. They get the product, the idea and the lie all at the same time. Sweet deal!

Mentally I believe the effects are akin to living in not a heightened state of awareness, (like the effect the war on terror has) but more a heightened state of possibility, where the act of gratification is so easy to achieve, it results in the person taking the easiest way out and fulfilling their desires. In doing so, the person willingly believes lie after lie, and after awhile - who would want to speak out against their govt when it gives them pie? Basically it lets people not grow a spine and blurs their eyes to real issues.

Btw, I'm referring to advertising in ALL it's disguises, it effects philosophy, education, science, ... everything.

So anyway - "The society we live in today is allowing itself to be lied to and invaded by advertising and marketing, and that effect is detrimental to the human person" - guess that sums up my feelings. Anyone else? Anyone think the opposite? look forward to hearing!

reply to post by shamus78


The reason for marketing and the saturation of media into every facet of our life is the result of an agenda to distract each and every one of us.

Consumerism, and ultimately, vanity breed depression. You can see this without much problem, since the US is the most medicated population on earth.

Controlling our perception of reality based on mainstream media is just one facet of the problem. For instead of doing something meaningful you've been deeply pondering about advertising. It's all their to distract us and more importantly make us feel less of ourselves. "Buy these shoes, you'll be better at basketball". Well, I can't afford those shoes, so I guess I am just a loser.

For those that are unable to differentiate between real life, and the movie that is being shown to you, I highly suggest turning off your TV.

One thing that I absolutely DESPISE is when an ad invades your entire computer screen and you're forced to sit there and watch their stupid little ad for 5-10 seconds before the option to close the ad pops up.

Do they really think I'm going to buy their crap after they hijack my moniter and force me to watch? Everytime that happens I vow not to buy any of their crap, even if its advertising a getaway that includes 10 naked woman wrestling in a fountain of Jack Daniels.

Anyways, I pretty much never watch TV anymore so I miss the bulk of companies trying to pawn their crap onto me, I stopped caring what the new status symbol is.

[edit on 5/11/2009 by ben420]

I agree, but even if you don't have an attachment to material things, all the sheeple who do WILL effect you as well, due to your attachment to the rest of society.

I'm not particularly attracted to stuff either but it just sucks to see society drag itself down the toilet in contentment.

reply to post by shamus78

I'm thinking that it's a sub-conscious 'push' by all of us (them marketing, us accepting) specifically in relation and reaction to the current world events and worries. All this pressure goes into a person and it has to come out somewhere. Gratification and fantasy are easy outlets.

I think the opposite is true. Current world events and the pressures we feel upon ourselves as individuals and members of society are the result of people's determination to gratify every sense and make every fantasy come true. Society doesn't make people miserable; it's exactly the other way round.

If we could all agree to moderate our wants and control our numbers, most of our social and political problems would cease to exist. But we are mere animals, at the mercy of our drives as all animals are, and there is little we can do to control ourselves.

As for advertising and marketing, they are means to an end. Or rather, two ends: the success of the advertiser's business and the gratification of the consumer's desires. Eliminating them will not change the facts of life one jot.

If we could all agree to moderate our wants and control our numbers, most of our social and political problems would cease to exist. But we are mere animals, at the mercy of our drives as all animals are, and there is little we can do to control ourselves.

I totally agree with you on that

As for advertising and marketing, they are means to an end. Or rather, two ends: the success of the advertiser's business and the gratification of the consumer's desires. Eliminating them will not change the facts of life one jot.

But in the end, could the end be detrimental to society as a whole? e.g Person eats at mcdonalds for ten years. Both partys profit. Person get diabetes and becomes obese. Society has to pay for the gratification obtained by this person.

I know at the end it just becomes this circular debate where both sides are right, so cheers for the responses so far!

Originally posted by shamus78
But in the end, could the end be detrimental to society as a whole? e.g Person eats at mcdonalds for ten years. Both partys profit. Person get diabetes and becomes obese. Society has to pay for the gratification obtained by this person.

Yes, of course. Although I prefer to think about it as individual people having to deal with the consequences of others' actions, rather than society as a whole - I mean, I believe in 'society' (no Thatcherite, I) but I see it as something people produce, rather than something that produces people.

I know you've said that

at the end it just becomes this circular debate where both sides are right

but there is a practical difference in terms of the solutions favoured by the two sides.

If you believe society produces people - shapes their character and behaviour - then you are likely to see fixing society as a way towards making people 'better adjusted', (meaning more cooperative), and 'happier' (meaning they experience less pain and - we are led to hope - more pleasure*).

If, on the other hand, you are inclined to think that people make society, you will - as someone who desires to live congenially amongst his neighbours - reason that the way to fix society is to fix people - give them incentives to be cooperative and inflict less pain on one another.**

This goes far beyond conventional labels, but someone who favours the first way might be called an instinctive socialist or social determinist; a proponent of the second way would be in some sense a capitalist, because nothing incentivizes like cash.

But cash is - isn't it? - at the root of the problem you describe. But is it really the problem? Money is the mirror of mankind, and if it reflects things in a distorted way, well, such is also the inevitable nature of all perception. Perhaps the problem is elsewhere.

If a way is eventually found to make people happier and better adjusted, I suspect it will be opened by neuroscientists and evolutionary psychologists. The question is, once the way is open, shall we want to follow it? The ghost of B.F. Skinner raises its implausibly bigdomed head. Science is slowly but surely exorcising that other celebrated revenant - free will. When it has fled, squeaking and gibbering, shall we find ourselves fallen into what Churchill called, in a somewhat different context, 'the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science'?

*Personally, I think mavericks have all the fun, provided they're tough enough to take the lumps.

**And more pleasure. Pass the fur-lined handcuffs and have another sip of this really excellent Saurternes.

My humble opinion.

Marketing and advertising is a huge waste of ressources and time.

Marketing is the name of the tool corporations use to control the sheeple.

It is a by-product of consumerism and the excess of capitalism. It has grown into a huge economy by itself and it will not stop. We need a new way of thinking so that we stop to waste ressources by making cheap non-durable product and wasting more ressources by telling you it is better than the other stuff.

Originally posted by grandnic
Marketing and advertising is a huge waste of ressources and time.

Marketing is the name of the tool corporations use to control the sheeple.

Hang on a minute. It may be one or the other, but how can it be both?

If it's helping corporations control the, ah, 'sheeple', then surely the resources and time it consumes are not wasted? They make profits for the shareholders. Are you a member of a pension fund, even a state pension fund? Do you have a life insurance policy? If so, you're enjoying part of those profits, because insurance companies and pension funds, both public and private, tend to be corporate shareholders.

We need a new way of thinking so that we stop to waste ressources by making cheap non-durable product and wasting more ressources by telling you it is better than the other stuff.

No, that's an old way of thinking. What you need is a way of getting people to adopt a new way of thinking.

If you have any ideas on that, u2u me a project proposal. I may invest. In the meantime, there's one means of communicating ideas that seems to work pretty well.

It's called advertising...

[edit on 11/5/09 by Astyanax]