I have belonged to a congregational church in my hometown of Nashua, NH since I was born and baptized at the age of three months. This church has been a second home to me for as long as I can remember. I have always admired my pastors and sunday school teachers. Faith has been an important part of my life since I was a child and is inherent in the way I treat other people, developing close relationships, acting generously while doing for others especially those less fortunate and not consuming things for myself (for the most part). It's not necessarily an end all be all in my life, but it has guided me through good and bad times and helped me to make somewhat good decisions. Growing up in our family's household, there was not a lot of talk about consumption/advertising/marketing and how it related to our lives. We just didn't go out and shop a lot and life wasn't about fulfilling our needs through consumption. There were some things I always wanted but never had, and I learned to accept that and put my time and attention into other things such as my school work and sports. I remember very few times that I actually felt persuaded by seeing a particular ad or commercial, or that whenever something was particularing "in" or trendy, did I actually get wrapped up in it and need it for myself. My parents are very humble, realistic and practical, and they demonstrated to us through their actions that marketing and advertising were not reality, and they existed to persuade people to do things that they wouldn't normally do.
Anyways, my family and church background have certainly shaped how I look at marketing. It was interesting that the sermon at church today was related to marketing and consumption. I feel this is an appropriate topic for the blog. I was lucky to be home this weekend visiting family and friends for a baby shower and birthday party so of course I wanted to attend the church service sunday morning. My church, although it holds tight to longstanding traditions, is still lenient and less formal than many churches I have been to. The topic of today's sermon from my favorite minister was centered on what life is all about and where does our treasures lie? For the entire sermon I thought of how it tied to the Culture, Consumption and Marketing class and how I often feel that religion and religious teachings are in complete contradiction to mainstream thinking and culture.
The sermon began based upon a quote from the Bible "lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth...for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." My Minister's sermon revolved around the idea that over the years, consumption has become almost patriotic. Our lives for the most part are tied to meeting our needs and wants and marketers serve to meet our needs. Consumption controls us. But in essence, the Bible promotes the idea of being generous and not storing for ourselves material treasures. The Church (well, my church) teaches us to live like Jesus, love and serve others, and not spend our lives building up material wealth for ourselves.
I somewhat agree with the message of today, in that people seem to constantly be in "buy mode". People like to stay up with trends and fashions, the latest technology and whatever seems to be the cool thing, whether its a new car, the latest Apple product, or clothing trend. Essentially I agree with the Bible in that I don't make my decisions in life around consuming things to make me happy. But at the same time, I'm about to embark on a career change in the area of pharmaceutical marketing where marketers exist to showcase branded drugs to appear to better serve the needs of patients in the eyes of doctors and consumers compared to generics and other branded pharmaceutical companies. It's an interesting concept to reflect on and think about. I would be very interested in how other people see it.
