Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Advertising - Needs and Wants

A good friend commented the other day that Guyanese have not learnt the lesson Joe Average American is learning - that one has to live within his means. This comment was precipitated by the observation that many Guyanese were purchasing cars but still renting living quarters, maybe extending themselves into ongoing debt.
It made me remember what 'The Man' (Cheddi) had to say back in 1945, in his brief Article - http://www.jagan.org/articles2s.htm#The Need For Consumers’ Cooperatives ( Contd ):


(2). Advertising that is useless will be greatly eliminated. In buying soap, a cooperative consumer will not want to support a model who has demonstrated her beautiful face in the soap advertisement. He will want to know whether he is buying the face or the soap. He will desire factual advertising such as, kind of fat used, percentage of fat used, what colouring matter if any, type of base used, etc. In buying a toothpaste or powder, he will not like to know, that his meager income is helping to pay a movie star several thousand dollars a week, of interest to him would be whether the product is accepted by the Bureau of Standards or the Dental Association. He will like to know what are the ingredients, how coarse the grit, etc.

he touched on the power of Advertising to appeal to people to buy things they wanted at the expense of things they needed, or maybe it was another in a similar vein.
The "handout" mentality of 'things' has got to stop as the world's resources dwindle and populations with their raised expectations increase, Guyanese will find themselves more frustrated as we seem to have turned into consumers and very few producers.

1 comment:

  1. This is example of the excellency and perfection! Great example on advertising in these days..Hope you make few more case studies..please keep sharing !@
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