Let’s take those items one at a time. The first, planting a name in people’s heads isn’t so bad, it just makes people remember their options when they want to buy something, right? Wrong. Not only do people who consciously decide to buy something remember company and product names, anyone with a problem is more likely to consider buying something as a solution. Is your kitchen cluttered? Don’t take old cans and bottles and reorganize it yourself, no, instead take a trip to the container store and buy a full set of Acme 1-2-3 plastic containers!

The second insidious act is the most visible; it is the form which almost all advertising takes. The psychological tricks and manipulations used here are multitudinous. Everything from humor to innuendo and back again is employed to mask the simple fact that all advertising distorts or omits information about a product or service. If this doesn’t seem wrong to you, then the situation is worse than I thought. Truth is the most important thing there is. There are a lot of problems in this world, and you can’t solve a problem unless you have accurate information. An entire global economy built around the idea of distorting truth for profit—read: “personal gain”—-can’t be a good thing.

The third instance of insidiousness is the worst of all—the measures taken to make people better consumers. It is far more subtle than a scantily-clad woman in a beer commercial. It is the shape of the seats in the airport, it is the color scheme on the front of your local McDonalds, it is the red #40 in your Twinkie. It is every minute detail that goes unnoticed by the conscious minds of consumers around the world, but to the subconscious minds, these details are shouting and waving signs that say “Buy more! Buy more now!”