Consumerism-Who's Consuming Whom?

Commercial world has been growing rapidly in the 21st century. Every business is desperately finding its way to survive and even more to make an optimal profit for its own priority by creatively offering and marketing its products through advertisements. This condition can potentially drive and attract customers to consume goods or services from that particular business firm. Another issue that eventually would arise and become significantly important in consumerism is whether we as consumers actually need the products that we purchase or not. Often times we buy things not because they are necessary but because we just merely want them. We desperately are trying hard to fit into a certain trend or to create a particular self-image. In the present day, when we mention about trends and self-image, we also have to reconsider advertising industries' crucial roles in it. There is a coherent interdependency between individual actions in consumerism and a company's role as advertising industry in which the marketers usually portray what the audience desires to see --congenial, relaxing, and off-hour activities--.

Advertising

Edo period advertising flyer from 1806 for a tradi...

English: Some advertisements for Pichilemu hotels ...

Those industries know perfectly well how their power can be applied to create, control, and change people's behaviors in consumerism from time to time. As a matter of fact, because most people simply want to be respected by their sense of belongings and do not really outsmart the things they purchase, they are easily manipulated either by commercials' implicit or explicit persuasive messages and unfortunately trapped into the harmful impacts of advertisements. Those people, who get to see a lot of advertisements and largely influenced by them, tend to have some personal problems associated with their negative behaviors on consumerism --neglecting their economic and relational aspects, expecting too much on their livings, and becoming more materialistic--.

One of the problems that people will face related to...