This commercial frames the American dream as an exhibition of outward possessions, measuring one’s status and success by one’s material goods. In modern advertisements, materialism is depicted more subtly but is more evident in automobile advertisements.
Advertisements make society materialistic by driving the demand for products, and products are material. Advertisements do so by exploiting the principles of persuasion to convince readers and listeners that they need items that are truly superfluous. In this way, the pursuit of overpriced garbage begins.
The world that we are seeing right now is much more affected by materialism, and advertising has played a big part in making that materialism visible to the public. In the 1950s, materialism was promoted by language and the portrayal of people in advertisements; companies claimed to make people feel happier and/or more fulfilled in their lives through the consumption of these products.
How Materialist People Operate
Materialistic people felt that purchasing products would make them significantly happier, a sentiment that was further encouraged by advertising media. These materialistic values are forced on younger members of society by advertisements, which convince them to buy products consistently while encouraging throwaway societies.
Through the continuous worldwide advertisement, extreme buying, and abundant hoarding of objects, our young people are becoming shopaholics or consumer addicted, and are embracing the materialistic values. In other words, materialistic values are being forced upon our young people in advertisements, encouraging or persuading the constant buying of products and services. We must also realize the fact that in some way, these advertisements are causing a demand for products and services in us, thus making us closer to a materialistic society.
The advertisements that we are consuming all the time are painting the picture of society, therefore shaping how we see ourselves, and the aspirations that a lot of people have. We consume a vast amount of advertising every day, and when that content contributes to a picture of a society that is inclusive, marketing and advertising can serve as a catalyst for social progress. Even more profoundly than impacting our consumption behaviors, advertising has the power to shape our aspirations.
We have plenty of experience working on how people are affected by negative life events, and advertising has significant effects, even when you contrast it to those.
The Ubiquity of Advertisement in America
Because advertising is so pervasive in our First World societies, shielding children from it is nearly impossible. It is not by accident that materialism has increased in our society at very similar rates as the rise of advertising. It is worth asking if Western societies are doing it right, by allowing high levels of advertising, virtually without regulation, as though this were inevitable.
American consumers depend largely on ads to affect the way they spend about $9 trillion each year on a variety of goods and services. In a nation where consumer spending drives economic development, ads inspire people to spend more. By encouraging more purchases, advertising contributes to both job and productivity growth, helping both meet rising demand and enable every consumer to spend more.
Competitions Shifts to Brands Rather than Products
As competition for consumers’ dollars and attention has increased, advertising has focused more on brands rather than products. Increased audience support, combined with the desire to relate to consumers rather than to capture value, has greatly expanded the overlap between the for-profit and the nonprofit sectors of LGBT advertising. This is why this form of values-based advertising works; it is always possible to leverage shared values to build connections to consumers, and communities in general, all of the time, thus enabling advertising both for-profit and for-good.
For example, Nike is a leading sports brand, which uses various types of advertisements to persuade its potential consumers to buy its products. Advertising usually entices consumers to substitute their older items with a newer, better model. The messages children are receiving through advertising agency techniques are: buying a particular product will make you happy or popular.
These advertisements created the picture of a good living for all the people or consumers just by showing their products and promising a good living for owning them. Consumers are led to believe the products because of the environment it is advertised in, wherein the American dream and individualism play a crucial role.
All people or consumers who show how their product brings them life and happiness is possible just through owning a product, blurs out the picture of true happiness and fulfillment that comes from within ones own heart, rather than being caught up in the materialistic world and its contents.
How to Think About Advertising and the Materialistic World
We should not forget the advertising world is created by people lost in their world of materialism and in order to fulfill their materialistic needs, they want common people to become involved as much as they are, thus starting the crazy rush of fulfilling virtual needs. Advertising just shows how having one thing increases one’s status symbol, shows one’s achievement, increases popularity, and so on, and we forgot that people that were always remembered were those that were never caught up with this world’s materialism.
Industries are throwing ads and tracking us as everybody is scrolling on social media, listening to radio, watching TV, even driving on the roads. While our new generation lives in a world filled with inventions and material goods created to fulfill and ease our everyday needs, advertisements for those goods and services force us to depend on purchases in order to live and attain true happiness.
With consumers almost constantly exposed to a middle-American ideal, it is impossible to deny a connection between TV advertisements and an accepted belief of the American dream as fueled by materialism. This novel view of ultimate purpose was popularized by the advertisements of the 1950s, and remains central to our cultural values decades later; largely reflected in television advertisements of the contemporary era, our acceptance of individualism and materialism as facts of society remains powerful.
Their pitch is that advertisements are trying to get the audience exposed to something new and exciting to buy, that their job is to merely give information, and in doing so, raise the welfare of humanity.
By knowing these potential negative effects, you can adjust your ad campaigns so they have more positive impact on the community, part of making your company and products more socially responsible.