Picture
Adidas tells us Impossible is nothing. We see athletes such as David Beckham tell us the highs and lows of the career he has chosen. However Adidas gives him the belief to overcome this problem with their slogan impossible is nothing. Does this give the couch potato the impression and beleif to put on a pair of football boots and he will soon become the next David Beckham. Or is this just part of the consumer culture.

Consumer culture has become part of out identity and our lifestyle.

''Branded lifestyles are not merely superficial veneers on deeper identities but have to some degree become substitute identities'' Benjamin Barber

We have become subdued to the power of the brand to define who we are as people and the power of advertising that relates to are identity.
The best way to define consumer cultures is the way that societies buy for personal needs. However advertising and other culture imperatives to consume much more than we need to. In which leads to shaping public opinion and desires of the consumers. Advertisers manipulate people into buying products. They do this through use advertisements that invoke our brains to tell us that we need more material things to show off our lifestyle and society that we belong to.

Picture
Using the phrase retail therapy is the underlying love that we have for consumption in which it has wrapped it arms round each and every consumer and drawn us in. We want to live a life and live in pleasurably which means consuming products to make us feel better about ourselves and influence the environment we live in and how we want people to see us.

Theorist Karl Marx agrees with my theory by stating

''for it's only when they purchase things that they find momentary gratification and escape from the alienation that plagues them''.

In this quote Marx is talking about how the society feels alienated by a vicious cycle of work to buy the things that we want from the advertisers who tell us we need this stuff.

Consumers have begun to get lost in advertisements as there are to many around according to Jean Baudrillard. In which we cancel each advertisement out unless there is a factor that appeals to our emotions that leads us to purchasing that product.

It can be argued that capitalism has been replaced by consumer cultures in which has lead to a world of hyper reality. It has become that we cant distinguish between the real and the hyper real. Do we but products because we need them. Or do we just buy material products to keep up the trend. In the words of Madonna ''we are living in a material world, and Im just a material girl''







Leave a Reply.