How brands shape and control us

There is a movement in Britain that advocates anti-consumerism. Its name is 'Enough'.

Pioneers of this action believe that we consume an excessive amount of 'goods' as a society and this culture is partly responsible for the social problems of our planet such as poverty, environmental pollution and isolation of the individual.

‘Enough’ wants people to ask the following question themselves:

How much is enough? How do you live with owning fewer goods to have a more reasonable life? How can we be less dependent on shopping and feel better?

To understand better, we had better have a look into opinions, comments of one of branding’s most original thinker ,Martin Lindstrom.
1970 Australian born man, one of the most influential names of 2009 according to time magazine and is a highly successful brand and marketing specialist.
He founded his first advertising company when he was 12 years old. As of now, he is one of the founders of Interactive Asia.

He shares some interesting facts:
"A lip cream company that makes international sales guarantees more sales by adding some addictive ingredients into its products.
Some brands also choose to roam the fake customers in their shopping malls and sell more by creating the impression that customers are talking more about their products and being sold more.
Brands are also doing data mining on the internet to combine data so that they can hit the target with ads that are "appropriate for our psychological profile". "

Lindstrom says that about 35 per cent of all ads in the world are trying to press a purchase button with a message based on fear. He gives striking example of flu epidemic in the previous years:
"During the outbreak of SARS in 2003, the SARS epidemic in 2003 and H1N1 in 2009, the increase of the use of antibacterial hand cleansers, antibacterial wet wipes, antibacterial air purifiers which are completely useless is based on the fear controlled by marketing. "
Food brands that make children dependent on their products with the help of computer games and mobile applications, clothes brands that negatively affect children's sexual identity during adulthood, makeup products, all are entering our offices, our homes,our comfort zone without having noticed.

Although we are aware of some informations posted above, we are not uncomfortable with this trend. Against that problem, our judicial mechanism is not developed and we do not even wonder. I think it is now our turn to move in a more clever way regarding this topic.

I assume if we make a list for our needs, we can avoid of such trend.

“Enough List”

• Make a shopping list and bound to that list
• Do not throw away any items that you do not use too much, keep it with good storage forms, you can use it in the future.
• You don’t have to own ‘goods’ just because somebody owns the same
• Don’t care to be old-fashioned if you have your own style
• Do not be a slave to extremism