We consume many resources and products today by moving beyond basic needs to include luxury items and technological innovations in order to improve efficiency of  all kind of product that foes  from electrodoestics to  mobile phonees with GPS and MP3.
All these is because  throughout history we have always tried and investigated to find ways to make our lives a bit easier to live than they are in present time. However, increasingly, there are important issues around consumerism that need to be understood, such as know the border line between what is necessity from  what is luxury; how much  impacts  certain forms of consumption on the environment, on society, or even on individual; how do material values influence our relationships with other people: what is the impact on poorer nations and people on the demands of the wealthier nations , and so on.
What do you think about it? Could you answer any of these questions?


For more information you can visit:
//www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism

Here's a new video which presents the consumerism as the ideology that controls the nowadays society.
As teh video says , the best mesure of the economy progress is the facte that we're buying more and more every year, so it is one of the most important things of teh world's economy.
There's a general belief in the society that thinks that the more qe consume the happier we'lll be.
So as a consequence of this belief , we all live in a world where everything is done to persuade us for buying it,such as  magazines, clothes, games,...
But as the population grows , and we go on consuming more and more , the ecosystem on which we depend are now close to colapse.   What do you think about it? Are we aware of all  the negatives consequences that the continuous consumerism of the modern society causes?

Here's a video that paraodies the most common aspects of the consumer behaviour.
The belief that with money everything can be bought, how wonderful is life if you have money, the fact that we never have enough and that we are always inventing new necessities as a excuse for buying something that we don't really need.
Do you think that this musical parody of consumer's behaviour reflects the reality of the fact of buying continuously?

Here's a video that talks about how emotions , sensations ... influence in our consumer decision and he also explains how to mesure emotion, attention, emotional engagement and memory of atention that determine the consumer decision in order to make consumers buy the product or consume the service.

Rituals, superstitions and ... Consumerism!

*In order to have more control on our lives , we try to follow some rituals or habits .

As many experts says , we do that because of the constant evolution of the world and our environment, so a way to make us feel that we control our lives and every situation or problem we deal with.

But did you know that rituals are related to consumerism?  Or that some of our consumer decisions are based on our habits?

If during all your life , at home, you family has bought THAT drink, why would you buy the other one? You'll always buy the one you have grown with.
WHY?

 Because it reminds you of when you were a child,  you drank THAT one with your friends, because you just like THAT one and don't have the intention to buy the other one...  Is a ritual you have been practicing your whole life, so why will you change it now? Why won't you buy THAT drink to your son?

So as we appreciate, buying for habit it's a great point for brands. They know that and are tryng to make artificial rituals so that people buy their product because of a habit, and in  this way , they don't have time to think whether they really want that one because they really like it .

Most companies are doing nowadays some marketing capmaings where they focus on creating a ritual, for example withdrawing their product every summer, and then , in winter that product is available another time. This is a way of making us buying that product every winter , because thanks of the campaigns we know that teh product is only available on that period of the year, so we buy it ,because we don't want to end the year without tasting it.

Did you know that rituals were connected with what we buy and how we buy? What do you think about that? Do these marketing campaings for creating artificial rituals on people really work?

Mirror Neurons , have the Power

As  http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/mirror-marketing-more-on-mirror-neurons.htm   says : “mirror neurons“, which fire when a subject watches another subject perform an action. If the subject has performed the action before himself, these neurons will duplicate, or “mirror” the, action in the subject’s brain.

But, do the mirror neurons really make us buy those products just because other people own that products?

The answer is YES.

I read Martin Lindstrom's book named Buyology which explains that one of the reasons because the iPOD has succeeded because of the mirror neurons. Why? The answer is easy, because when we see someone that is listenning to the ipod , and we think that it displays coolness, automatically our mirror neurons want to imitate that person in order to be like him/her. So these products can display the satisfaction and confidence of the owner by having those products ( iPods, Guitar Hero...)

This effect done by mirror neurons plus the pleasure of the " dopamine"; which is a chemical produced in the brain that causes us a pleasant feeling when you make a purchase, can drive us to search for a product which give us more popularity, satisfaction, social status and social recognition.

That  makes me think how important  the campaign that a company makes in order to make their product well-known is; because, they want that their consumers feel empathic with their brand.

Do you think that companies should develop more the emotional campaigns? Do you agree with the fact that the mirror neurons lead us to buy some products? Do we buy those products in order to be like the person next to you?

Do teenagers have Consumerism Fever?

*We all have the consumerism fever , but specially  teenagers.

 The fact of buying all the time, every day, and every month material things that we want in that moment doesn't make us happier. Moreover , it drives us to a permanent sensation of insatifaction.

This has serious consequences in the mental health of teenagers and their self-confidence decreases because while they are buying new clothes, pc games, etc ; they are realizing that they are still being the same guy as they were before buying that product, with the same problems and hobbies, the same sensation which they had before. They discover that spending money on that SPECIAL thing hasn't brought them happiness,; so they keep going and keep buying new things in order to get that sensation of happiness and great self-confidence.

WHAT CAUSES that teenagers go buying all the time is because they want to be fashionable, they want to own the last things on market, ( newest cothes, newest technologies, newest mobile phones...) , because marketers know that, the teenagers are being persuaded by  more than 1000 add a day just for them, in which the companies shows them the importance of owning something of that brand or another.
It doesn't matter if they have a bad behaviour, if they belong to a certain urban group or something, what really matters is that they DON'T REMAIN " without that car" or " those jeans".

That's why teenagers are so weak on consumerism , it's impossible to remain without buying anything for a teenager during 10-15 days, their friends, TV, magazines, streets, malls, ... All places where they go frequently are full of adds persuading them to buy something.

Do you think that nowadays teenagers are weaker than the ones of  the past decade? Could you stop buying for 10-15 days?  What do you think about it?

What's Neuromarketing?

 Have you ever heard about Neuromarketing? Don't worry, most of the people haven't.
The neuromarketing is a new science that uses systems of biometric measurement in his studies to analyze the market. It does not conform to the opinions or declarations of the consumers. Moreover, neuromarketing investigates the eactions of their brains.

In other words,  Neuromarketing is a mixture between neurology and marketing. This science investigates how the customer's brain reacts when the subject has to make a decision in front of a product.  Neuromarketers investigate everything that happens on the customer's brain: if he likes the product, if it reminds him to a past situation. if the product causes some emotions to the subject,...

The objective of this science is to know how our brain works when we make a decision, if the brain is influenced by somethings like the emotions, the advertisement, the music of the shop,  if we buy conscientiously or not; let me tell you that the answer of this last question is NOT. 
Neuromarketing is very useful for the companies because it lets them know what customer expect about their product, if customers like their products , why, and what influences the subject to make the final decision.; in order to focus on their advertisments campaigns on those things that make customers choose theirs products.

What Do You Think about this new science of Neuromarketing? Do you know why you buy? Do you feel Neuromarketing is interesting? Should it be more popular?  Why do you think that most of the people don't know anything about it?

Stuffed by Celebs

Have you ever tried to find the watch that was wearing THAT CELEBRITY ( such as Rafael Nadal or Brad Pitt) in that magazine? Would you like to buy new Paris Hilton's sunglasses? Or maybe ,  you used to hate Hunter boots until you saw Kate Moss wearing them? 

It's a fact that  every product displayed by a celebrity increasess its popularity at the "normal" people.

Nowadays, a lot of brands relies on celebritys for showing their product as a new technic of marketing, by this way , their brand can gain coolness and makes people think that the product displayed by the celebrity can give them "social status" as the celeb does.

Moreover , there are websites where customers can find the product displayed by a celeb , and buy them. For example http://www.celebrity-sunglasses-finder.com/ helps people that are looking for the same sunglasses that owns a celebrity.

So as we see it's not too difficult to buy the same clothes, watches, or jewels as the famous people. This technic is a good way to make people know your product , and to persuade us to buy it by being displayed for as many celebs as possible.

But although owning the same clothes as a celeb , or copying her hairstyle, we should choose carefully who we want to be like, in order to avoid bad models of behaviour .

DO YOU THINK that this technic is efficient? Does the product give to customer the desired coolness on the eyes of other people?  Can you seem more popular wearing the same blazer as Jenniffer Aniston does?

BUYING FOR DISPLAYING?

*By the time I finished reading Geoffrey Miller 's book Spent I've learned many knowledges about consumerism and aboout why do we buy too much, but one of those things is still making me think about it. Spent says that we buy because of our primitive brain.

The same way as the first humans on Earth

tried to show off their dominance by mating different females, and their stregth by hunting elephants or other animals; we, spend money on iPods in order to display our coolness, and to reach the "social status" we want, and the newest clothes and technologies to display our agreeableness or extraversion.

WHAT DO YOU think about it? Are you agree with G.Miller or do you think that we buy because of another reason?

· Why Do We Buy? ·

*We all live in a society where consumerism is the central point of the social life. But is it true that we equate personal happiness with material possessions? Do some products bring us "status"? Or is it possible to display our personality through the goods and services we buy?

It's obvious that all this possessions don't make us happier, because if they did , we would have stopped buying. So , do we really know where's the border line of the conspicuous consumption?

I'll try to find the answer of all these questions in order to know whether humans are predestinated to the consumerism , and if the answer is affirmative, how could we control the compulsory consumption that developed societies are practicing.