Does Advertising Influence Behaviour?

Usefully broken down into two questions:

1. Does advertising affect behaviour?

2. Does a particular ad affect behaviour?

On the first question the answer has to be an unequivocal YES.  Behaviour is directly linked to advertising and the (consumer) culture it creates in general and around given products.  It is probably the single largest driver of unsustainable material and energy consumption.  Businesses collectively spend billions on advertising per year and while there is an element of keeping up with the "din" of other ads, companies do not spend money if it does not make them more money.

Companies and advertisers gliibly tell us that they are merely in the business of improving people's lives by giving them what they want and need.  Do women want to be Anorexically (mortally?) slim?  Does relentless planned "New and Improved" obsolescence really improve the quality of our lives?  While "Lathering and Rinsing" are probably good advice, "Repeat" is probably not. 

On the second, of course some ads are more effective than others.  But at the very least they function to help us avoid thinking of the "pink elephant."  In other words, the worst of the worst ads create a memory and an association with a product.  They may not boost sales and consumption as much as hoped by the company but they certainly go beyond where it would have been without the ad.

Have I ever changed my behaviour as a result of an ad?  I would have to say yes - I certainly change my behaviour based on the latest "evidence" (i.e. research and documentaries such as "Food Inc.") but I also make purchasing inquiries based on ads and perhaps ultimately purchase a given product if their ads live up to reality on closer inspection compared to the competition.

I think the problem is that we have difficulty thinking outside the frame of the atomic individually rational economic actor.  It all seems innocent enough.  Consumers looking for solutions to their wants and needs and purveyers merely providing "information" about their product's ability to meet them.  Yet, can a rational and even well-educated person really compete with millions of dollars, strategies, memes, sound bytes, slogans and jingles carefully crafted by expert marketers and backed by psychologists?  Advertising is far more impactful to both our physical and mental environment than any of us will probably ever be able to comprehend.

This is precisely why campaigns against smoking and other harmful behaviour such as smoking are needed.  They are only required as an attempt to counter the effects of advertising that have promoted private profit over public "wealth."  While many are useful and "effective," they are a burden on scarce public resources, under-resourced relative to the original, and should not be required in the first place (even if paid for by the original mind invader).  Its a bit like BP's oil spill and the promise to make people "whole" (or was that "hole"!) again after a clean up.  Simple not possible.  Once the ideas and images are out there (like the oil), social ecology (like coastal ecology) has to deal with it and will be irretrievably "changed."

Advertising is replete with fantastic and laudable creativity and has produced many fascinating public discussions and even promoted self-discovery individually and collectively in some important ways.

However, this fantastic human creativity would be manifest in other areas were it not subsumed by the big money consumption promoters who teach us (at everyone's peril) to equate having with being.

Since the only true assets any of us have in life are, 1. Time 2. Space and 3. Energy.  I would heartily recommend that the single biggest thing any of us could do to promote sustainability and preserve both our creativity, sanity and our species is to avoid and prevent advertising from invading any one or all three of these as much as possible.


Turn off the TV, avert your stare, read stories instead of flyers.  Talk and listen.  Write poetry, music, verse, songs.  Make the most of the wondrous gift of mortality.  Eschew the clutter.  Own yourself.