About the Author: Self proclaimed Grammar Nazi. Mass Communication student who is obsessed with all things to do with Domo-kun and can debate with you until the cows come home, and win. Yes, she can.

Consumer culture

What is materialism and what does it want from us? Ong Kay Jen explores the development of consumer culture through the ages and how it has subtly impacted our way of thinking today.

Take a look at this ad campaign by Coca- Cola, 'The Coke Side of Life.' According to Marc Mathieu, senior vice president for Marketing, Strategy and Innovation, The Coca-Cola Company: "This new campaign invites people to create their own positive reality, to be spontaneous, listen to their hearts and live in full colour."

The designs are aesthetically pleasing. The philosophy seems good and sound. So what is the matter here? Nothing much: except when you recall that this is an advertisement selling nothing more than a sugary, carbonated can drink.

How did it get to this? To answer that, we shall first take a look at the roots of the advertising industry.

Advertisements began as a means to inform the public. Before printing was invented, it was used to spread information on a particular sales or service, using mostly images and simple words to reach out to an illiterate mass.

Two important inventions from the Industrial Revolution changed this: the printing press and the assembly line.

The printing press, invented by Johannes Gutterberg in 1440, is often credited with the growth of widespread literacy. Mass literacy paved the way for mass communications, and ultimately led to the birth of advertising on a large scale. The assembly line, invented by Henry Ford in 1901, made it easy to produce goods in a fast, efficient way. Mass production and the economy as we know it today is a result of this.

Since then, advertisers have been pushing harder and harder for consumers to continue buying products in order to keep the economy afloat. Up to this point in history, advertisers had been selling on a "needs" basis. They slowly began to realize that it was no longer enough to sell a "need" to a people who could already afford to buy their basic needs.

With that in mind, advertisers began to adopt upcoming psychoanalyst theories, spearheaded by Sigmund Freud. According to him, all human beings have impulses that are too dangerous to be realized in civilized society, and so are repressed and relegated to the unconscious mind.

Advertisers used this theory to develop a new kind of advertising - one which slips past the conscious mind in order to appeal directly to the unconscious. And so that roughly brings us to the marketing strategies of today.

Let's go back to the Coca-Cola campaign. Rather than sell the product, Coca-Cola sells an idea, a lifestyle. By promising to satisfy an inner desire, consumers identify themselves with the product. The idea is to create a society which unconsciously defines itself by the products it uses, in order that the consumer may keep buying without thinking.

In theory, of course, this sounds a little absurd. Where do Freud's theories fit into everyday life? You may even be wondering how this applies to you.

Take this little test. What is your first impression of someone who drives a Ferrari? How about someone who drives a Mini Cooper? A Myvi? A Bentley?

They're different in your mind, aren't they? And yet the product which differentiates them is essentially, a car.

This is because cars have been marketed as a powerful form of status symbol. The same way you judge a person's social status, personal taste, and sexuality by the car that he or she drives, so does that person express his or her perceived self-image through the car and various other products.

People today buy not only to satisfy their physical needs, they buy in order to express an inner desire; a version of themselves that can only be achieved by the promises a certain brand makes.

This way of life that has been absorbed into our culture - the consumer culture - can be dangerous and destructive if left uncontrolled. Why? Firstly, if we keep depending on products to help us define ourselves, then our self-development would always be limited to what we buy. "Stuff " would turn into a crutch for our personalities. They provide only temporary, shallow gratification while distracting us from getting down to the real deal; the things that truly make you, you. Things like raw talent, pure intellect, even straight-up natural beauty.

Besides this, if we deviate too far from "needs-basis" spending, we could wind up spending irresponsibly. How many people have purchased the iPad just because, "It's damn cool-lah!"?

Also, consumer culture has left us with plenty of waste we simply do not know what to do with. Environmentalists have long been crying out for proper monitoring of waste disposal as our trash is toxic to Mother Earth. (For more information on the impact of consumer culture on the environment, do visit www.storyofstuff.com.)

I'm not saying that we should all go back to the Dark Ages and live hand-to-mouth. Yes, the "stuff" we buy certainly makes the world a vibrant, interesting place.

But consumerism must have its proper place. The trick is to be aware: of your product, where it comes from, and how useful is it really in the long-term. Don't be a mindless shopping zombie.