Advertising

Does advertising determine our buying habits? Are we all affected in the same way?

Nowadays, many people believe that advertising determines our buying habits because we live in a Global Village, where everything can be bought to achieve happiness.

To begin with, I think that marketing has a huge influence on our buying habits, but it does not determine them. While it is generally true that we do not need something until we have it, our buying habits come from the culture in which we live. It can be claimed that living in a globalized world forces mankind to join consumerism, but there are still some communities that live without luxury things. For instance, several tribes in Africa do not know what Coca Cola, Mc Donald’s, Nike or Nokia mean. That happens not only because of the lack of exposure to the means of communication of their countries, but also because they live in a non globalized world, with different lifestyles.

What is more, everybody is not affected in the same way by publicity, and it depends on how we think. People who are not educated since childhood are much more likely to believe in everything they see on the television, where famous people show up advertising some products that are supposed to have “magic” effects on people. Since the first years of highschool, students are taught and trained to criticize everything they see, for example in the subject “Crítica de los Saberes” in 4^th Grade. In that way we can make sure that students have at least a basis to sceptic and independent thinking, tools that make people aware of the false products that they can be offered to buy.

In other words, it is like going full circle, because when people are not aware of the false things that the TV shows they end up believing that, feeling that they will gain happiness only if they buy a certain product. What those people do not know, realize or even care about is that nothing is built to last, and every single gadget created today will be replaced by newer versions in just a few days. Then, those persons get used to having that and they need to buy a new version of the same product but with some little differences, until something new appears and they feel like having it, just to fulfil their self-esteem. For that reason I believe it is a chain that begins with a thing you buy, and then with the massive attack of the media you cannot stop consuming, unless you are clever enough to discern what is worth being bough and what is not.

To sum up, we live in a material world, where the littlest thing we buy is supposed to give us happiness. Most of the times it is fostered by the media, but in the end it is all a cultural matter, and it depends on us and the education we have to tell whether something is necessary or not.