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Consumerism is so last century, says Mr Sorrel

Off-Grid Living wrote:In a series of extraordinary and unreported speeches at seminars this year, Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and CEO of WPP, the world’ No 2 advertising group after Omnicom, representing trillions of dollars of consumer spending worldwide, has been announcing what sounds suspiciously like the imminent death of the consumer society in its current form. And other ad execs are joining the chorus.

Interesting that the very people who led the trend (USA and UK middle class) are leading the end of the trend. Hope the Chinese geezers in Hummers take note...

'His best guess is that some time in the next five to ten years we will move into a long period of austerity in which the factors already mentioned conspire to make conspicuous consumption not only unfashionable but almost impossible. “Culture is moving into a time of restraint and simplicity. It will mean the advertising industry –(including media and marketing) just cannot exist in its current form.”'

Looks like the New Age is coming of age!!!

Not a moment too soon . . .

Yay!!!!

Or is this the next clever marketing scheme? A chance to sell us stuff linked to our most fundamental emotional desire - survival?

How much will we all spend on PV, solar thermal, EV, water systems etc etc over the next decade.... the mind boggles.

Still, at least we can consume knowing that the whole planet will be benefiting....

Just read the article. Very encoraging but a couple of alarms going off for me....

The article wrote:All these strands are pulled together in an open source ‘wiki’, ‘Citizen Renaissance,’ published online this month by Jules Peck director of the UK Conservative Party Quality Of life Policy Group and Robert Phillips, CEO of the London office of PR agency Edelman UK.

Is this marketing company in the payment of the Conservative party at all???? Are they trying to tap an unconcious desire? A fundamental human need? i.e. that of survival? Is Edward Bernays alive and well in the marketeers world??

Maybe decades of marketing has just made me cynical....


All in all I'd love to belive that article. If advertising and marketing get behind 'make do and mend' and austerity there's hope for use all!!! Well most of us anyway.

If advertising and marketing get behind 'make do and mend' and austerity there's hope for use all!!!

I suspect that surviving the coming worries will have a price ...

"Every home needs the Wizzo Survival Pack. Just £149 from your nearest supermarket branch. Don't let your family down!"

In fact, the reason that mankind ever formed governments in the first place was to protect ourselves from others using force to kill us (violating our right to life), or to make us do their will (violating our right to liberty), or to take what was ours (violating our right to property). Everybody agrees that when somebody comes to hurt or kill you, or to enslave you, or to rob you, you can defend yourself. Government is the same thing, only in groups. The point of having a government is to organize force for the defense of a group or community (be it a neighborhood, a town, a city, a state, or a nation). And the government IS us. So at what point does it become justice for the government to do by force that which it is unjust for US to do by force?

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Nikimathew
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