Week 5, Advertising, self conception, the lemming drive.

I think advertising could raise peoples understanding of the issues pertaining to sustainable consumption but overall I think the need to break the entrenched behaviourable patterns of society is the priority, and that, in my view, is more than any advertising campaign could achieve on its own.

Ive thought about advertising more today than ever before... Advertising is a useful marketing tool with regard to my buying habits largely because it is informative.

With regard to most often purchased items such as food, household cleaners, shampoo etc I go for the mainstream eco friendly labels most often, organic food most of the time, Ecover and items known not to be tested on animals, which is an issue I see as linked, ethical treatment of animals and ethical treatment of the planet. If they don't have non tested animal products (their own description of these items differs from more reliable sources of information, such as Peta or BUAV), then I buy them online instead. Why?

In making purchases I am reading labels, so information is what Im seeking(does it contain asparteme for example), with regard to product. In other words I am affected by my own self conception of being a wary wife and mother, protecting her family from potentially harmful ingested substances, (in which I include pesticide and herbicide residues), and also trying to protect the planet and other species. The amount of advertising concerning bacteria destroying cleaners has left me strangely untouched and we live companiably with silver fish, wood lice and the odd spider in our home and without recourse to endless sterility inducing substances. This may be due to my self conception of being someone who likes to live and let live, (which has in turn led to me being vegetarian), or you may alternately infer I am a scruffy old bag who prefers not to endlessly clean! (or both!)

In summary my self conception is the most important influence in purchasing, but advertising plays a part in informing me of what products may best fit the self conception I currently have. I suspect this is a common way in which people choose purchases, and successful marketing is persuading as many people as possible that the given product fits their self conception or perhaps their "ideal " self conception.

So persuading more people that they are in fact green eco-friendly warriors with an over riding concern for the welfare of the planet may be a useful policy. Positively feeding-back that information to them has apparently been a successful way of influencing behaviour "Wow you are so aware of green issues!" etc.

Information that our self conception is formed from the people around us is more tricky because we do not all follow our family and societal programming; its possible for some an alternative driver may be rebellion against it, or a search for individual identity. There is an inference that this concept of (societal induced) self conception could be harnessed to take society to a tipping point, where enough people are persuaded of the value of "eco friendly" behaviour, for the society as a whole to become "green" i.e. dedicated to trying to live sustainably, but I dont think advertising is the method of choice to bring about this state of affairs. The example of enough societal leaders/icons perhaps, (people who a very broad sector of society respect) such as Nelson Mandela, might be helpful, but also a general assumption by government, business leaders and media, that we are ALL concerned, naturally, might provide the positive mental feedback necessary to start the conceptual ball rolling. Harder not to be concerned when you've been assumed to be part of a mass movement that is....