The Corporation vs. Ad and Ego

“The Ad and the Ego goes beyond deconstructing individual advertisements to reveal the economic and political dimensions of living in an advertising infused environment. In our “new world order” of diminishing resources and devastating pollution, this film makes the critical connections between the rise of consumerism, environmental degradation and our blind commitment to economic growth at any cost. It forcefully demonstrates the link between our debased public discourse and a media culture that defines freedom as consumer choice rather than democratic participation.”  

Consumerism is directly affected by the media environment and the public. Consumerism is most effective in an urban, developed city, where the media effect is most, and the “competitive” society is centered as well. The media is very influential in today’s society because it has the power to set standards and social values and figures, through commercials, posters, articles, news etc. The Corporations control the mindset of the society. In the 1920’s the media’s sole purpose was to bring their products in the open, and sell them. Since the 1960’s the Corporation’s have stopped selling products, but they have started advertising a lifestyle. They promote a certain lifestyle with their products, which attracts more customers. This is why corporations are very dangerous, because they can limit our knowledge and change our perception of an event, to benefit themselves. But we as a society have very little knowledge about how consumerism works. The power is handed to the Corporations, and they use the power of commercialism to construct a utopian living through their advertisements, and the public fall for these messages encrypted advertisements, and fall into the cycle of buying to fulfill consumer wants, instead of consumer needs.

Corporations are very smart, indeed. By targeting the youth and the wealthy, they create the sense of “need” or “unfilled” emotions amongst the public, and therefore, display how their products fulfill the gap in their “unhappy” lifestyle. This is a growing trend, because the shift in focus to lifestyle of people is flushing the market with more hungry customers and fueling the Corporate markets. We as society are being brainwashed, into thinking that buying the product, will enhance our lifestyle. So one way to look at this is, even though we believe that we are buying a product to fulfill our needs, we are actually buying a “key” to that utopian lifestyle, or otherwise, a key to happiness. Also, these Corporations want us to believe that buying their products make us a part of the “economic growth”. Going back to the point where, we mentioned how the Corporations use the media to limit the public knowledge, in the documentary, “Corporations”, we saw how Fox News Channel was caught in a scandal for not exposing the infection of cow milk due to external substances injected into cows to enhance the milk production. This would harm many companies that supported Fox News and therefore this news was not telecasted, and the reported was fired. This came out in the open only after a law suit was filed against Fox News. The choice made by corporations to safeguard their profit and interests at the cost of public health, raises the issue of reliability and faithfulness amongst the public. To what extent can the media control out mindset?

 In Ad and Ego, a very interesting observation is brought up that we are more prone to influence by commercialism when we are not paying attention that is when we are subconscious of our surroundings. Even though we believe that we focus on particular types of commercialism, we are always infested in buy commercials and media all the time, that in our subconscious, we let these little glimpses of ads influence our bigger decisions. The target of advertisements is to leave people in a shallow self esteem, to make us feel that we are unsatisfied with our lives. Obtaining these products will provide us with salvation. So we are living in a very materialistic society, or we can say in a growing one for sure. Advertisements do not just sell their products; they are marketing qualities of life. They are attaching value to these products such as class, success, wealth, progress and what not. Desires for a better living….

Commercialism will continue to grow as long as the public misleading follows. It is a cycle that is hard to brake, because commercialism has manipulated the entire world, because they are working towards a “better future”.