An ad for ads?

There are tell-tale signs of an economic slowdown in Australia.

Here, too, in Japan are similar signs. There were ads on television about how advertising is good for you, that we need advertising. While I see the value of ads as a way to tell us about the availability of a product, it is when ads become a persuasion tool for our need for something not needed that it starts to tick me off.

Most of the products advertised on TV I really don’t need. They do not cover the basics for our survival. We don’t need an ipod to be happy. To come to think of it, if it were necessary for our survival we needn’t advertise about it in the first place. We’d all know what it is.

This is about the difference between needs and wants. But they are often very difficult to tell apart. Skim through this post and you will notice how difficult it is to use the word “want” instead of “need”. At times they can be used interchangeably. At other times they cannot.

So there must be something fundamentally very wrong with our society and our way of life when there is a need(?) to advertise for ads.