Are we to blame for “the want?”

December 7, 2006

Christmas and materialism – two opposing ideas that somehow join together every year, leading millions of well-intentioned shoppers out of their homes (or, increasingly, onto the Internet) in search of the perfect gift.

I was reminded of the ramifications of this joint venture this past weekend while listening to the public radio program Speaking of Faith. On that show, Nathan Dungan, a financial educator and president of Share-Save-Spend, spoke about this exact subject – more specifically, “the turmoil many of us experience with money in our day-to-day lives — and how we might work towards a moral and practical balance for ourselves and the next generation.”

Greed and materialism are problems in our society. We know that. When asked, “What is the most urgent moral crisis in American culture?” one-third of 2004 voters identified greed and materialism as the most urgent moral crisis — ahead of poverty and economic justice, abortion, and gay marriage. In 2006, more than 25 percent of voters chose it as the second-most urgent moral issue facing the country.

Meanwhile, in 2005, debt outpaced the personal savings rate for U.S. households for the first time since the Great Depression.

Everyone wants someone to blame. Fingers point in every direction. And while listening to this program, I thought of one thing: are we, as advertisers, partly to blame?

So, to swing completely away from the topic featured on Speaking of Faith, I spent the rest of my shower thinking back and forth on two questions: Is advertising causing materialism and greed?

Or is the advertising culture simply following along with the trends, serving as a needed industry in order to make educated choices and gain visibility in an already greedy world?

In other words, which came first? The Advertiser or the Materialism?

This is where the slope becomes a little slippery. Can you blame an advertiser for helping promote greed, yet offer praise for making the important retail and marketing decisions needed to get through a system filled with too many options and too little information?

As a newcomer in the field, I see both sides. I understand that, as advertisers and marketers, we hold a powerful position in the hierarchy of commercial success. Our job is to convince an average citizen to drop their brand and pick up another, regardless of need. We want you to want a product. We measure success by your greed and materialism, because that’s the only tangible way to truly show success.

Does that put us at fault?

On the other hand, our job is to inform, to make the unknown known, to illuminate the competitive advantages of one product over another. The market arena demands these pieces of information, and it is our place to deliver them. If it weren’t for materialism, for greed, for the wants and needs of the consumer, advertising wouldn’t exist. It wouldn’t need to.

Does that relieve us of fault?

I don’t have an answer for this. As a copywriter, I like to think that what I do is noble, that I’m helping businesses succeed and helping the public make the right decision. I also believe in the power of self-control. The advertising industry doesn’t force you to do anything. Instead, we lay our facts and opinions out in the open for you to see, to pick through and make choices based upon.

What do you think? Is advertising to blame? Or is it something deeper, something more socially problematic?

(Special thanks to the Speaking of Faith website, where I picked up quotes and figures.)

Filed Under Advertising, Marketing, Criticism

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HenkinSchultz is an agency. An advertising and marketing and branding and design and production agency. All of those things, and then some.

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