One of the blogs I follow every week is called The Onion. The Onion is a great site, perhaps the best site on the internet for insightful and thoughtful humor.
Occasionally while enjoying a cup of joe and reading through The Onion’s articles I come across one that makes me think. I mean it really makes me think hard. For example let’s look at the following article: Pepsi to Cease Advertising.
Intended to be funny, the article opened up an avenue of thought to me leading me to ask the question; what would happen if all companies ceases to waste money on advertising and focused on meeting the needs and wants of people as well as their workers? What would happen to our society overall if we cut out the parasites ( of which advertising is one! ) in our economic system and focused on meeting the needs and wants of everyone to the exclusion of greed and self-promotion.
Switching to another company, Coca-Cola, I recently discovered that the company was worth an estimated sixty-seven billion dollars and yet their stock was worth an estimated 400+ billion dollars. This disparity in value is really disturbing when you look at it from a sustainable economic model that cannot be manipulated by financial means. I am no economics major but it does not take a rocket scientist to see that the company is way over valued in the stock market, much like the majority of the major corporations in America and eventually this wall of wealth is going to come crashing down around our ears.
How did 400+ billion in stock manage to find its way into the hands of the people? Why did they invest in a company that was living beyond its means? Why would they invest in a company whose products may contain mercury? ( See: There’s Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup, and the FDA Has Known for Years! ) I have no idea if the HFCS in Coke’s products contain mercury or not have no way of proving it one way or another but the fact that such a large company continues to use such a substance after substantial finding have been released does show a lack of concern for their customers concerns and well-being. For added perspective Pepsi’s products contain HFCS and no information is available as to if it is tested for mercury contamination either. Any company of mine that sold products containing HFCS would have been recalled until I could put into place testing procedures to prevent the toxic substances from entering the public food supply.
Companies use stock offerings as a type of loan which in many cases you have absolutely no chance of making a profit off of and just as good of a chance of losing everything you invested in them. Investing in the stock market and investing in corporations is the same as gambling your money away. Yes many people have made money in the casinos and the market, but a much larger number have lost money they were depending on to accomplish some goal they had set in life.
Advertising is becoming much less important in the internet age than any of the major corporations understand. As people become smarter and gain understanding of themselves and the world around them, they gain a better understanding of what they need and want to live the life they desire. The internet makes it very easy to find these needs and wants through the various search engines available at the click of a button. It’s so easy in fact that some of us have begun to question the real reason for advertising in this era.
I have arrived at the conclusion that advertising is more about putting money in the corporation’s pocket than it is serving the needs and wants of the people who may consider their goods and services. If they wanted to offer goods and services, a simple website would be sufficient for them to let the world know about what they have to offer and people’s opinion either good or bad would determine the real need for their products.
Psychology has taught us that advertising influences us even if we are trying to minimalize or negate that influence. This is accomplished through a variety of means that are too varied to delve into in this article. The bottom line though is that the root of modern day advertising is to convince you to buy products whether you need them or not.
A good example is car advertising. If you watch television or read a newspaper, or even drive down your average street, your apt to lose focus on what you were originally doing because of the deluge of advertisements for vehicles. Common sense would tell you that the average person knows when they need or want a new vehicle and the internet or the local phone book will help them find the information they need to accomplish this goal. And yet a significant percentage of the cost of vehicle is devoted to blasting its existence to everyone three hundred and sixty five days a year.
I personally believe that society as a whole would be better off without advertising. Prices would lower to a level which is more reasonable and sustainable in a capitalistic economy; which in itself is questionable as to whether it’s sustainable over the long term. Or we could use that extra money as a society to do some of the things that really need to be done, like make sure everyone is housed, clothed, and fed; has power, transportation, and clean water.
The onion wrote this article as a joke and yes it was funny, but the article has immense social value for what it represents as a way to improve the quality of life for the inhabitants of this planet as a whole. We here at Augmented Living thank you for taking the time to read this long article, but we felt it was necessary to provide social commentary to this subject in a detailed manner.
Links To Other Augmented Living Freegan Articles:
The Freegan Society – Our Future?