Posts Tagged ‘Consumerism’
Shopping ’til we drop on Earth Day
Earth Day is nearly here. Just in time for retailers and producers to stoke the consumption of all things green and revive their flagging fortunes in today’s tough sales environment. Advertising Age (reg. required) asks, “Is Earth Day the New Christmas?”:
As April 22 approaches, marketers of all stripes are bombarding consumers with green promotions and products designed to get them to buy more products — some eco-friendly, some not so much. And while that message seems to contrast with the event’s intent, the oxymoron seems to have been lost on marketers jumping on the Earth Day bandwagon in record numbers. This year it seems that just about everyone has found a way to attach themselves to what is fast becoming a marketing holiday that barely resembles the grass-roots event founded in 1970.
Leave it to American commerce to dress up consumerism on a day that is meant to remind us of the harmful effects of excessive and inequitable consumption. If business and industry wanted to make a sustainability statement, they would close up shop on Earth Day and challenge us to buy less and give more. Oh wait, isn’t that what Christmas is supposed to be about?
Tags: Advertising Age, Christmas, Consumerism, Earth Day
Posted in Business & Economics, Consumerism, Marketing, Sustainability | No Comments »
Congress stokes religious flames of consumerism
In the wake of passage by Congress of a $152 billion economic stimulus plan, a guest columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer asks:
Is it too much to suggest that consumerism has become a kind of alternative faith, a religion of sorts? Religions are characterized by some vision of a good life, by their rituals and by a particular language. Consumerism seems to be developing all three apace.
Writer Anthony B. Robinson will hear no objection from me. As he observes, Americans have gone from using citizen as our default designation to consumer. And we are taking on our consumer role with religious-like fervor, aided and abetted by a Congress and president that understand the very basis for our economy is consumerism.
So now, because mortgage and finance companies succeeded in gaining more consumers with loans they could neither afford nor sustain, creating the subprime crisis, we have a stimulus package, a kind of consumer Viagra, to get us up and buying again. Is something wrong with this picture?
Yes, Anthony, there is.
Tags: Anthony B. Robinson, Consumerism, religion
Posted in Business & Economics, Consumerism | No Comments »