The idea that the advertising and marketing industry have let consumerism dictate the importance of their concepts and designs is on that has been discussed by Ken Garland in 'The First Things First Manifesto (1964), Poyner, Lasn et al in ' The First Things First Manifesto' (2000), Poyner, R., in 'First Things First Revisited'(2000) and Beirut, M. in 'Ten Footnotes to a Manifesto (2007) All of these authors have commented on how consumerism has changed what it means to be a designer, a profession which has now been associated with a money-making agenda. For example, Garland was the first to assume anti-consumerist stance in 'The First Things First Manifesto' in 1964 and made the point that "we have reached a saturation point at which the high pitched scream of consumer selling is no more than sheer noise. We think there are other things more worth using our skill and experience on", insinuating that consumerism is not where a designers priorities should lie, and that their work should have more purpose than to sell products. This point is supported by the claim that "Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession's time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best" (Poyner, Lasn et al 'First Things First Manifesto' 2000).
This notion implies that designing with a purpose has been made redundant due to the greater wealth that can be gained by consumerist design. Both these authors have agreed in each manifesto that an alteration needs to be made in favour of more purposeful and ethical design. The images above show two examples of ethical advertisements, and two that are considered unethical, created for "a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact" (Beirut, M., 'Ten Footnotes to a Manifesto' 2007). This style of advertising capitalises on points made by John Berger, that the public is hypnotised by what they see as humans have a basic instinct to trust their eyes. The first two examples of Heineken ads give the viewer a thirst for something refreshing, and this effect has been made with purely visual connotations.
However, of the second two, the first makes an attempt to counteract it's sexism by using a woman to take advantage of it, while the second has openly racist implications in it's slogan. However, "'consumer-culture is an oxymoron' is one of those aphorisms so pleasing one accepts it unthinkingly" (Beirut, M., 'Ten Footnotes to a Manifesto' 2007), so in cases similar to this, viewers are being led to believe something simply because they don't want to argue. This point is secured by the notion that the world is now so surrounded by design that the public do not care about the message, perhaps leading to an idea of "designers being engaged in nothing less than the manufacture of contemporary reality" (Poyner, R 'First Things First (Revisited)' 2007). While this may be the case in much of the modern world, all authors have expressed "hope that our society will tire of gimmick merchants, status salesmen and hidden persuaders, and that the prior call on our skills will be for worth while purposes" (Garland, K., 'The First Things First Manifesto', 1964) and perhaps then the concept of design will return to substance over style.
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