As seen in the Dayton Daily News on May 21, 2016.
I was walking through our living room when a TV commercial came on that caused me stop to watch.
In the commercial, a recording artist and his friends are sitting in his upscale living room. The artist’s mobile phone is sitting on his coffee table and he pours a bottle of champagne over it to demonstrate it’s waterproof. His friends are in awe.
One of his friends decides to do the same with his phone, but as he pours the champagne, his phone sparks and is ruined.
I walked from the room feeling unsettled. Why would someone produce a commercial showcasing wasting champagne, ruining home furnishings and a phone to make a point the phone is waterproof? How about portraying a family swimming and taking underwater pictures to demonstrate the phone’s waterproof feature?
How have we come from the depression era when people used resources very wisely to being wasteful just to show off?
We’ve been conditioned to be wasteful. After the war, people who were producing goods used in the war still needed jobs.
Our society came up with a plan to get us to buy things to secure these jobs. We bought toasters, clothing, cars and other material goods.
There came a point when we had what we needed, but that wasn’t good enough because people still needed jobs.
So our society came up with ways to get us to buy more than we needed. We started purchasing so many things that our homes became cluttered, and our overall happiness declined as result.
Many of you then decided to buy less because you were suffocating from your clutter.
Our society came up with the plan to build things that wouldn’t last. This forces us to buy new goods more frequently, because things break long before we decide we no longer like them.
This commercial portrays all this. Its purpose is to get you to think the phone you have isn’t good enough, and within a year or so they’ll be trying to sell you a different phone. The champagne celebrates wastefulness. The furnishings and ruined phone can be replaced easily even though there was nothing wrong with them.
Marketers are very good at getting you to buy things you don’t need. You need to push back by thinking about your purchases more carefully.
When I’ve shared this message during my talks, I have had people suggest our economy will collapse if people take my advice. How sad that we have to clutter our homes in order for our society to be successful.
Besides, I’ve never said, “Don’t spend money.” Simply, “Think more carefully before you spend.”
For me, this means spending money enjoying experiences. For example, my husband and I love riding bikes together. This hobby requires purchases, such as bikes and dinners enjoyed after a long ride. We spend our money for an experience that enriches our marriage.
Since I enjoy experiences more than things, this helps me choose how best to spend my money. You need to think about what makes you happy and stop letting marketers persuade you into buying what makes them happy.