Are we immune to commercialism?

Each of us would like to believe that we're immune to the effects of advertising and commercialism. Maybe other people are affected by ads, but we ourselves are too smart, too savvy.

Yet are we really immune? A lot of evidence suggests that we are influenced. Think about the nationally-advertised products we buy, the style of our clothes, the kinds of food we eat, the attention we give to our appearance, and our encyclopedic knowledge of brand names. In these ways and others, our lives reflect the ads around us.

Over the years, the sophistication of marketing has increased a great deal. The messages that encourage us to buy are designed by creative, talented people. Modern scientific knowledge of human psychology and of how the brain processes visual information is used in developing ads. An array of technical equipment and resources is also used. Ads talk to our conscious, rational mind and to our subconscious fears and desires.

Of course, no one would advocate a ban on marketing. Ads provide information that can be helpful to us as consumers. Ads increase our understanding of the product choices available to us. And in an economy based on free enterprise, ads play a vital role for the business community. Ads are a valid part of modern life.

Some people are concerned about all the advertising we're exposed to. They feel that the constant message to buy influences us in ways that are not to our benefit. One concern is that the message to buy overshadows other messages about helping each other, caring for our environment, and contributing to community.

What follows is a summary of concerns about the influence of commercialism in our lives. The information is not presented as an objective argument on the pros and cons of commercialism. In fact, this list and essay were put together by an organization that works to fight commercialism. Do you think these concerns are valid? Why or why not?

What are the effects of advertising and commercialism?

1. Commercialism distorts our culture by turning every event into a reason to consume. Anthropologists say that holidays reflect a culture's values. In America, every holiday is a sales event.
   
   
2. Advertising projects false images. For example, some ads imply that you're not cool unless you drive an expensive car, that smoking means you're an independent spirit, or that to be mature means drinking alcohol.
   
   
3. Commercialism contributes to environmental problems by encouraging wasteful use of natural resources. Over-packaging, disposable goods, and buying things we don't really need all contribute to unnecessary use of limited resources. The manufacture and disposal of the things we buy cause other environmental problems, including habitat loss and increased air and water pollution. Billboards cause visual pollution.
   
   
4. Advertising perpetuates stereotypes. Examples include stereotypes related to race (African-Americans as musicians and athletes), gender (women as sex objects, men as business people), and class (middle-class whites as the social norm).
   
   
5. Advertisers influence the content of publications and broadcasts. Government censorship of the media is illegal. Yet it is well documented that newspapers and other media are censored by advertisers. For example, a beer producer may pressure a magazine in which it buys ad space not to print articles on the dangers of drinking.
   
   
6. Corporate sponsorship of civic, environmental, or other non-profit groups may influence those groups. For example, tobacco industry contributions may discourage an organization from joining anti-smoking campaigns.
   
   
7. Commercialism has influenced our political process. Many politicians try to attract votes with an image created by advertising and media coverage. In the past, candidates tried to attract votes by their stand on the issues.
   
   
8. The public's perception of a company's activities and priorities can be distorted by image advertising. For example, ads can portray major polluters as environmentally conscious companies that give to worthy causes.
   
   
9. Advertising costs us money. Businesses pass many of their advertising costs on to us. Also, the price of a product increases when ads successfully cultivate the idea that a certain product can give us status or a cool image.
   
   
10. Ads cost us more in taxes, too. Advertising is a fully tax-deductible business expense. Because of this, state and federal treasuries receive billions of dollars less in business taxes each year. Tax rates for citizens must make up for this, so individual taxpayers indirectly subsidize advertising.
    
    
11. Ads can be misleading. They emphasize the benefits of products and services and ignore the drawbacks.
    
    
12. Ads encourage a brand-name mentality, or buying on the basis of the maker rather than quality or price.
    
    
13. Advertising fosters dissatisfaction, envy, and insecurity. It can make us feel unattractive, uncool, and unhappy with what we do or don't have.
    
    
14. Our commercialized society places a strong emphasis on appearance, encouraging us to care about our own and others' appearances rather than about characters, talents, and personalities.
    
    
15. Constant exposure to ads may encourage materialism and selfishness. This may make people less inclined to help others. Statistics show that giving to charitable causes has decreased in recent years. Similarly, there has been a decline in public support for government programs to aid the least fortunate members of our society.
    
    
16. Corporate sponsorship may influence content and undermine the objectivity of exhibits at science and art museums. For example, is an exhibit sponsored by a company that makes insecticides likely to examine human/insect relationships in a fair and balanced way?
    
    
17. Ads take a lot of our time. The average person spends almost an hour a day reading, watching, or listening to ads through TV, radio, theaters, videotapes, newspapers, magazines, mail, or telephone. By the time the average American is seventy-five years old, advertising will have taken four years of his or her life.
    
    
18. Paid product placements influence the content of movies, TV shows, books, and board games. This compromises artistic integrity.
    
    
19. Advertising promotes alcohol and tobacco use, which kill half a million Americans annually. Problems related to alcohol hurt more people's lives and cost society more money than all illegal drugs combined.
    
    
20. Marketers compile detailed electronic portraits of shoppers. Companies sell mailing lists for everything from foreign car ownership to sexual preference. These computer databases present a staggering potential for abuse.
    
    
21. Commercialism has spread into almost every aspect of life. Being unable to escape it is annoying to many.
    
    
22. Advertising aimed at young children intrudes on the parent-child relationship, can undermine parental authority, and can create friction in the home.
    
    
23. Commercialism may erode values - such as sharing, co-operation, and frugality - fostered by families, religious institutions, and schools.
    
    
24. Commercial foods and the ads for them tend to encourage unhealthy eating habits.
    
    
25. Commercialization of school materials and equipment may undermine objective, unbiased education.
    
    
26. Heavy promotion of shopping and buying distracts us from other activities such as reading, thinking, and playing. All the ads we're exposed to make it easy to forget how many different kinds of activities we enjoy.
    
    
27. Our commercialized culture encourages people to spend money that they don't really have. The number of Americans with financial problems has increased steadily in recent years.
    
    
28. Advertising implies that there's an easy solution to everything, from being healthy to having friends.
    
    
29. Many ads imply, even if they don't say outright, that happiness is something we can buy. When we act as though this is true, our personal horizons and ability to find fulfilment in life are limited.
    
    
30. Commercialism does not just promote specific products. It promotes consumption as a way of life.

What is the cumulative effect of all this commercialism?

Commercialism has clear parallels with industrial pollution. Just as modest amounts of waste can be absorbed by the natural environment, so modest amounts of commercialism can be assimilated by our cultural environment. Large amounts, however, can totally overwhelm either environment, and such is the case today.

For decades we failed to recognize, let alone control, the harm caused by industrial practices. In some cases, such as air pollution from coal-burning furnaces, the problems were obvious but were either ignored or justified on the basis of short-term economic gain. In other cases, such as toxic chemicals that pollute the air and water, the dangers were not even recognized. So it is with commercialism: We excuse its obvious defects in the name of economic progress; we don't even try to identify more subtle effects.

Again as with pollution several decades ago, the consequences of excessive commercialism remain unexamined and unproven. Our understanding rests on a handful of often preliminary or inconclusive academic studies. The fact is that, despite the dominance of commercialism in our culture, social scientists have barely begun to explore its nature and its consequences. Moreover, government regulatory programs are inadequate to contain commercialism. Agencies that focus on deceptive advertising have such small budgets - totalling only about one thousandth as much as what is spent on advertising - that only the most blatantly dishonest advertising can be stopped. Other forms of commercialism go completely unexamined.

What, then, is the impact on our society, when, as Advertising Age [a technical journal for people who work in the advertising industry] wrote, "mass-media advertising explodes out of a shotgun and sprays everyone in its path, kids included"? Andy beyond advertising, what are the effects of living in a culture where even schools, museums, sports and non-commercial broadcasters have been commercialized? Does commercialism turn engaged citizens into mere consumers?


© Center for the Study of Commercialism, Washington, D.C.

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