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.

Goals that transcend the means to fulfill them

The dilemma of all human economic systems is that they not only seek to, and promise to but, must satisfy needs and aspirations, that are themselves far beyond both human and economic.

Economics: a discipline that posits theoretical scarcity while assuming practical abundance. 

The Abundance of Scarcity

The irony of our time:  How it is that the central concept in modern mainstream economic theory is "scarcity," while the central operational assumption of modern economic practice is abundance.

(Mis) Leading Indicators

This most recent example from Statistics Canada is telling. Here is a summary of a “Leading Indicator” Report of April 22, 2010 (Earth Day!):

     "Leading indicators

     Economic Accounts: The composite leading index rose 1.0% in March, matching its average monthly increase since July 2009. However, the sources of growth continued to shift away from housing to other sectors of consumer demand and manufacturing.

The housing index rose by 0.2%, its smallest increase since its current upturn began in the spring of 2009. At its peak last summer, the housing index was rising over 5% a month. The recent slowdown originated in a retreat of existing home sales from their record posted late in 2009. Housing starts continued to increase.

     Elsewhere, consumer spending was mixed. Furniture and appliance sale rose 1.3%, their largest advance since June 2006. Spending on other durable goods declined 0.5% after eight months of strong growth. Services employment increased 0.6% with strength evident in both the personal and business sectors.

     Manufacturing demand continued to recover. New orders rose 3.2%, their third increase in four months. The increased ratio of shipments to inventories was driven mostly by higher sales. Export industries have led the rebound in sales, as demand for capital goods continued to languish. Factories remained restrained in hiring, and the average workweek fell again. The outlook for export demand was buoyed by further gains in the leading indicator for the United States."

“Consumer demand,” “manufacturing,” “housing index” (the cost of houses), “home sales,” “furniture and appliance sales,” “spending on durable goods,” “hiring” are all mentioned in the summary of “leading indicators” above. A few questions suggest the limits of these as adequate measures of the wealth of a society. What if consumer demand was for head ache medicine? What if manufacturing was for sandbags to hold back a flood? Why are more expensive houses considered a positive thing? Could more home sales indicate that people are moving to get away from something less desirable to them? Would it not be better for individual families and society overall if we spent less on “durable goods” so that money can go elsewhere (e.g. to education, skill development etc.)? What if hiring is in sectors that are associated with health risk, low income, or generally unsatisfying positions? It does not take much thought to realize that these “leading indicators” do not indicate very much except increases and decreases in transactions in the market. However, given the positive glow that usually surrounds news of increases in virtually any form of economic activity, these indicators might well be renamed: Mis-leading indicators.

Power and Understanding

As long as our pursuit of power exceeds our need and understanding, we will be misaligned with ourselves, our earth and our own sustainability.

Peril-ysis

It is becoming clearer by the day that our inability to act on what we know to be necessary is as urgent as it is elusive. 

Those who aspire to positions for social control are often genuine in their ambition to bring about change and even "contribute to society" in ways they believe to be positive.  But the boundaries of this ambition are restricted to making changes that never call into question the means by which they gained their power.

This is the essence of our modern dilemma.  Knowing what ails us while being powerless to quit.