Adverts (Wk 5 Assignment)

Hello Reader,

I am quite far behind on the assignments for my Sustainable Consumption course, so I am going to try to power through a few in a relatively short span of time. During week 5, we were asked to address the following: "Do you think better advertising will be enough to bring about sustainable consumption? What effect do adverts have on your consumption behaviour?"

Well, my response to this prompt is going to be quite brief, and not because I would like to move on to the next topic. Instead, it is because I have largely answered this during the week 4 assignment post. However, I will elaborate some more to specifically address these questions.
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Is it enough?

No! Advertising will not be sufficient to bring about sustainable consumption. There are far too many practical limitations and socio-cultural hurdles to simply advertise our way out of the system of unsustainable consumption in which industrialized societies have entrenched themselves. That is to say that even if a significant portion of the population was convinced by advertising campaigns that something needed to be done and they were provided with appropriate and accurate information about how to accomplish a full switch over to sustainable consumption, they would also need to organize the financial and physical capital necessary to alter the current systems of production, distribution, and consumption. Not to mention that the newly converted would also need to will power and fortitude to alter their personal habits and overcome any social awkwardness that may result from such changes.

Please note that this does not mean that advertising is not necessary (or at least very important) to make the social, financial, and physical changes to effect change. This is, perhaps, especially true with regard to people who get a majority of their news, information, and social cues from television, blogs and/or social networking websites. Such people, from whom I do not necessarily exclude myself to a certain extent, are receiving a significant amount of their information about the world through the filter of commercially sponsored sources that will necessarily have biases toward (or likely not against) the sponsors views of the world. By simply watching a block of television advertisements it is easy to determine what percentage of the sponsors support the current unsustainable consumption paradigm. Therefore, to counter or at least nullify the barrage of unsustainable consumption support, it will be necessary (or at least very useful) to replace or alter the messages being sent out to viewers (or users in the case of websites and readers in the case of magazines and other print media). In doing so, messages of sustainable consumption will at least stand a chance of gaining widespread acceptance.

Me, specifically

In general, I cannot deny that advertising effects my consumption habits either directly or through my friends and family. However, as of late, I have become increasingly cynical of advertisements and commercials. Instead I attempt to reason through any messages that might actually come to me (or at least to the extent that I am cognizant of such messages). Although I do feel as though I am the exception rather than the rule, and I attribute this feeling to my level of education to a certain degree and my field of focus to a greater degree (this course being a case in point).

In fact, it has gotten to the point that very pro-consumption messages will have the opposite effect on me (i.e. making me less inclined to endorse or use the product in question). On the other hand, I am constantly noticing "green-washing" advertisements as well, which promote a product as being very environmentally friendly, when there have likely been little or no substantial improvements. These messages generally make me question the credibility of the company and the product. In essence, I am quite tired of people advertising sustainability, and I would like to see people start acting sustainably!
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I apologize for the slight digression away from the topic in question, but I do not feel that there is much more to say on the subject, and there are loads of examples being thrown in your face everyday if you simply take the time to look and recognize what is going on.

Sincerely,
Sean Diamond