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Racking my brain and I cannot think of a single thing I've bought due to marketing or advertisements.
Our purchases come from need, then we research it including asking others. To me, that's half the fun anyway.
Then again, we're immune to fashion or trends. Don't feel the attraction of the latest and greatest of anything.
Maybe not having TV or mail helps.
I remember one woman I dated who asked why I was driving an old junker instead of a new car. My response was, "If you can't live within your income, you won't be able to live within mine either." We were obviously not a match made in heaven.
Since you express this well, I will try to answer in kind -
The disagreement here seems to be based on the idea that we're completely independent individuals whom no one and nothing can influence unless we let them - usually expressed as 'if we're so dumb, gullible and weak-willed that they can influence us.' (Like those suckers over - make that down - there.)
The problem is that it's not a matter of us over here, and "marketing" over there, across some kind of level playing field or debate stand with equal rules, and we only have to compete in some weight-matched bout where we can win if we really want to, and we can refuse to engage unless we choose to.
Marketing is propaganda, influence, behavioral control and engineering on the most massive scale imaginable, and we've swum in this sea for generations. The intensity of the effort is almost beyond comprehension. (To start with, marketing isn't done by the graphic designers and packaging developers and hasn't been for decades; it's done by some of the best behavioral engineering teams in the world.) The exhortations of who we are, how we should live our lives, and how all the products we buy shape those two things are absolutely incessant and omnipresent. It takes an astounding level of indifference or ignorance to not recognize that - but such ignorance, indifference and smug self-assurance is sold just as hard by marketing as the products they push. You're just too smart for them, Vic... but look up that name in a carnie lingo glossary.
Dismissing this because you "just saw an ad and didn't run right out to buy the thing" - the Budweiser argument - and all such thinking is based on a gross misunderstanding of what marketing's objectives are. And the most crucial thing to understand, beyond GM's wish to sell you a Vette or A-B's wish to sell you a Bud or Apple's wish to have you run down and stand in line for the next iPhone, is that marketing as a whole pounds and pounds and pounds on the notion of consumption for consumption's sake - as a whole, as an entire industry, as an arm of the consumer goods world, it all pushes you to buy, buy, buy, regardless of what you actually buy. And that drives nearly every decision in your life, from education to career to major life choices; it's all about being able to consume your maximum possible share.
Those who are going to quote and splutter one or two lines of "Bull****!" and "Not me, bud!" can save the effort. Really. Heard it. Herd it, too.
Those who are disturbed by this thumbnail sketch of things are the ones who got it. And should learn the real process that controls too much of your lives and decision-making and life choices. Because, in the end, it's the reason any of us are "living on the edge" - and why I maintain that the proportion of those in that position is much, much larger than conventional, smug assessment makes it.
Put another way - we could all be doing much better, as individuals, families and a nation, if we understood how utterly callous and predatory our economic system is at this street level, and rejected it.
You and I don't always agree, but you nailed it on this one, especially the bolded paragraph.
Much of this marketing stuff goes back to World War 2 and the Tavistock Institute in London. There were other think tanks involved as well.
As you've said, we've been swimming in a sea of marketing for generations. I'd say it's more than one sea, because the consumer end, as overwhelming as it is, is actually only one aspect of the ways we're all propagandized....but that's beyond the scope of this thread.
Only if you define that in the juvenile terms of the Budweiser argument. The drive to buy, buy, buy is almost uncontainable for most Americans, no matter how selective, discerning, upscale or careful they are in their buying.
Know anyone short of retirement age who's just... stopped spending? Lives on a minimum and lets uncashed paychecks pile up on the desk? Or (horrors!) actually reduced their income to match a simple lifestyle?
Or are you going to argue that buying the right things for the right reasons isn't 'buy buy buy'?
Give me a break. Many people have healthy and growing savings. You don't let the paychecks pile up, you invest the money and benefit from the wonders of compound interest.
But hey, we're talking about poor people. Let's wander back to those golden days of yesteryear, when I found myself paying $200/month just to stay even on my credit card balance. (Yeah, it was a while ago. Think about $500/month in today's dollars.) I got an income tax return, and used it to pay off the credit card, then kept making the same payments into a savings account. Just having to withdraw the money instead of whipping out the plastic put an end to a lot of impulse buying.
Another money saver was brown bagging every lunch for 40 years. The first year I did that I put $5 in a jar every working day instead of spending it on a restaurant. In one year there was over $1200 in the jar, which, admittedly, I spent on a really nice stereo system. The point is, I didn't have to go into hock for something nicer than most people owned. That habit over 40 years put $50,000 in my pocket, plus interest. I was a young guy in my 20s when I figured that out. The economics have not changed, except that $50,000 is about a cup of coffee a day.
Oh yeah, your buddies at PepsiCo. My soft drink is a refrigerated pitcher of water with a little reconstituted lemon juice in it. It costs about a penny a glass, is very refreshing, and contains no sugar. Cheap, refreshing and healthy.
You may think you have no choice. It's a lie. Yes, most people swallow whatever they are spoon fed, but nobody forces you to watch/read ads. I have a soft spot for tools, but I got a Harbor Freight catalog last week and haven't even opened it. I don't have the money. Well, I have lots of money in various socks, but I don't have money I want to spend, so that money will stay in my pocket. That's what a budget is for. Have you heard of a budget? It's a huge financial asset that costs nothing, yet very few people have one.
What you didn't know was that I dive into people's financials for a living, so I know the facts.
So does my wife....the commercial underwriter. Lol I love the stories about so-and-so in Scottsdale who has had his last two cars repossessed, lives in a million dollar home with a net worth that 15% of ours. Then there’s the guy who has 15 BK franchises. Lol
Because several people mentioned "cheap credit", and he's pointing out that credit is NOT cheap for those who can't pay the bill off each month. Those are the people that spend themselves into a bad situation.
1.) It's not my fault that people choose to spend themselves into "bad situations". They need to make the choice, a choice that can be made multiple times daily, to stop buying junk.
2.) Credit is cheap (though I did not explicitly say that earlier in this thread)...if you want it to be. Credit card interest rates can be as low as -2% (yes, negative 2) if you want them to be. They can also be up around 22% if you want them to be.....again it's the borrower's choicewhether they want to pay their bills or not.
Mortgages are still around 3-4%, which over the course of 30 years is laughably cheap considering that real inflation is probably in the 5%+ range. But again, it's people's choice if they want to save up for a down payment on a home or not. Of course a lot of people opt for cigarettes, booze, tattoos and tricking out their cars instead, which again is not my fault because I cannot make other people's choices for them.
The rest of your 101-level summary is fine, but the idea that marketing or any segment of the consumer goods industry has the consumer's interests is mind is somewhere between risible and, oh, I don't know, what would be the word for admiring anything that enriches the 0.1%? Marketing's sole focus for the last twenty years or more has been "How can we shake more valuta loose from this crowd of idiots?" Actual product need, value and worth are completely incidental to achieving that goal.
But keep it up with kindly ol' Don and Peggy really trying hard to serve your needs and improve your life, if you'd just listen to them.
Ah, product placement. "What is shawarma?"
Shawarma is a goat gyro, and is Europe's fast food. You buy them on the street. Tastes great, doesn't cost much, except in NYC. Most Americans have never heard of it, so end your superhero movie with them eating shawarma.
Or you could to to any Greek restaurant and order a gyro. Personally, I buy my food at a grocery store. Fast food is a convenience, not a lifestyle. The In 'n Out orgasm is an example. I tried one once. It's just a burger, and not a really great one.
Advertising does a lot to float marginal businesses. It lets them boost the price of inferior products and widens their customer base. In the food industry, introducing people to grease, salt and sugar is a gateway to addiction that will hook the unwary. Think cheeseburger, fries and a soft drink. Advertising just gets them in the door, where food chemistry can take over. The consumer ends up paying $8 for $1.50 in ingredients that will ruin their health.
You're free to quote any post I've ever made here as saying there was. (But I expect another chest-thumping irrelevancy again... hey, surprise me!)
Really.
Sketch out some alternatives. Beyond living on nuts and berries somewhere in the wilds of Alaska.
Are you really that helpless? Be a producer instead of a consumer. An old guy I knew decades ago told me, "You'll never get ahead working for wages. Work for yourself." I took that to heart. I built my first house myself. Yeah, nuts and berries. I lost that one in a divorce during the Reagan recession, but had enough of a grub stake to buy an uninhabitable house, which I gutted and refurbished. Sold that for the down payment on 93 acres and a house with no insulation, leaking roof and peeling floors. I really put the effort into that one, since it's my last home. Besides the quarter mile of creek frontage, it has amenities most people have never thought of. About 15 years ago we thought about moving closer to my wife's work, but couldn't find any place comparable under a million bucks. I didn't spend anywhere near that much, because I made most of it myself.
You can either be a maker or a consumer, a creator or a luser. It's all in your mind.
Shawarma is a goat gyro, and is Europe's fast food. You buy them on the street. Tastes great, doesn't cost much, except in NYC. Most Americans have never heard of it, so end your superhero movie with them eating shawarma.
You've got this all mucked up.
First of all shawarma can be goat but that isn't a defining characteristic it's also commonly seen with chicken and sometimes beef. This isn't just a Western European/American derivation, you can walk into a place in Armenia or Turkey and they'll often have 2-3 stacks rotating of different types of meats. Speaking of Turkey, in Israel shawarma is often turkey. I have no idea why it's common to have a North American bird as shawarma in Israel but that's how they roll.
Second to call it a "gyro" is incorrect, that's something entirely different. Shawarma/donner is slices of meat stacked up on the spit. A gyro is a loaf, the particle board of spinning meats. Look closely at pieces of meat next time you order a gyro, you'll see what I mean.
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