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Overconsumption is said to be the mother of all sustainability problems – “If we just wanted less, everything would be better…”.
Overconsumption, as all wicked problems are, is by nature insoluble and interrelated with many other problems. Any policy maker who tries to solve it will immediately face backlash and must bear the consequences brought onto them by people affected by their policies. There is no way to painlessly approach the problem of overconsumption as it is so ingrained in popular culture, the indication of values and status and many more facets of society.
Thus, cycle by cycle, the problem of overconsumption and with it resource scarcity, pollution and many others keep escalating without anyone willing to try implementing a solution and feel the anger of the people were it to fail. To make matters worse, unlike other problems, this time the Earth is running out of time. Any changes to be implemented as well as inaction will result in many parties feeling the negative effects for a long time.

What makes overconsumption into the identifying characteristic of our present society is the stories we’re being told about it. These stories describe material objects as the objects of our desire as well as solutions to many social problems in life. The difficulties in regulating advertising are also closely interlaced with the problem of overconsumption. There certainly have been many efforts to minimise children's consumption of advertisements, yet it remains debatable whether any of it is enough.

In this essay I will show how the culprit and the solution to one of the facets of overconsumption is the same – storytelling.

Storytelling has objectively always been a function of the human experience. It is supposed to equip us with knowledge of previous trials and errors, to help us know that fire burns without trying it. It isn’t supposed to be biassed. Traditional storytellers have always been quite transparent – the function of bards, writers, poets, parents, etc. is clear to us. However, the domain of storytelling is currently conquered by advertisers.

What is the importance of recognizing that the stories we’re being told are biased? George Orwell’s terrifying illustration of what life would be like in an alternate world where the very thoughts of people are being controlled by the careful manipulation of information flow and the language itself is a very far-fetched parallel to draw. Yet, it certainly emphasises how disadvantaged one becomes if they grow up in an environment where narratives are biassed. If we look more closely at daytime TV advertisements, or indeed, advertisements on Youtube or any other online space, then we find that they are showing us narratives about life that, on a closer look, are not that agreeable at all. Seeing a washing detergent commercial as a 5-year-old child may teach us more than merely “washing powder is needed to clean clothes”. Through careful choices this advertisement paints a picture in the child’s mind of using that certain brand of washing detergent representing good family relationships, wealth, purity and happiness. Teaching children that morals and values can be signalled to others through using certain branded products from a young age is how loyal customers are raised. According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, children are unable to detect persuasive intent in advertisements until they reach the age of 7 years old. Children also being the main influence on parents’ purchase decisions explains quite well why advertisers target children and even marketing courses teach students to do so.
Thus, if we agree that a child doesn’t possess the ability to determine which of their consumerist actions have external causes – because they don’t know what those external causes are – then we can determine children have no free will, nor a way to protect themselves against advertised values.

How do these advertisements affect us on such a profound level as to even influence one’s idea of happiness or productivity?

This problem can be described through examining the people who are the storytellers of the present, who would be advertisers but also filmmakers, animators and even architects – anyone who designs the physical or mental space that surrounds us which we adopt to live on in our minds. We should therefore look at the techniques of dramaturgy in film and animation as well as the philosophy of architecture because advertisers certainly do – albeit maybe always not intentionally.

The aim of this project is to research different principles with which to describe the unconscious ways advertisements manipulate us through the concepts of animation space and architecture space as well as to use these same principles in constructing more compelling visual narratives for tackling the problems of overconsumption and advertising. The goal is to show how growing up amidst advertisements shapes us to be future shoppers, only being able to imagine our future lives surrounded by products.

As established before, the promise of a lifetime brand loyalty is what drives advertisers to use lucrative techniques to lure in unnoticing people.

The first thing of importance is to understand space. “If the house is the first universe for its young children, the first cosmos, how does its space shape all subsequent knowledge of other space, of any larger cosmos? Is that house “a group of organic habits” or even something deeper, the shelter of the imagination itself?” [Bachelard, Gaston - “The poetics of space”]

According to G. Bachelard, the function of a “house” is to shelter us, therefore to provide a safe space for our imagination and dreams. “All really inhabited space bears the notion of home” – the problem arises when the human being finds the slightest shelter and starts to tie its notions of safety and freedom with certain products – “we shall see the imagination build “walls” of impalpable shadows, comfort itself with the illusion of protection, …”. Bachelard also states that the childhood home of a person will forever be tied to their ability to imagine their future life, it will exist outside of time in their memories and the person will be able to revisit a specific room or nook in that house to become inspired, creative or calm. Those spaces consist of a universal vocabulary of physical structures and objects known all over the world. Bachelard was also known for expanding the concept of phenomenology – the study of the meanings of things, spaces, events, tools, the flow of time and the self as they appear in our experience. Phenomenology studies not the functions, but rather the implicated meaning of things existing or not existing. Thus, depicting the spaces that we unconsciously perceive as safe and associate with our own childhood homes together with these universal objects and roles the people around one have regarding oneself are the tools to be carefully arranged in a narrative to convey an intention. If we keep in mind that relearning a piece of fact many times results in it becoming knowledge we can, therefore, state that when a child learns from a young age that a Christmas dinner must include Coca-Cola then it will present itself in the child's memories and demand to be bought and consumed again and again if that child wishes to reconstruct the happy Christmas of their childhood. It will exist as a universal object in the child’s shelter for imagination in their spaces of childhood safety – the object itself becomes a symbol of safety and carries with it implications of good family relations and happiness.

All animated space is created with intention, to house the characters, to contain and, at the same time, enable for the narrative to exist. “In animation, space represents the characters’ thoughts, memories and dreams, reflecting their collective consciousness. Everything inside the four margins of the screen is the ‘house’ inhabited by animated characters. The entire animated space, every element seen or heard, constitutes the collective consciousness of the film’s character. Animated space is like a mirror, reflecting – through the animators’ work – the collective consciousness and shared cultural space of the film’s characters.” (Pikkov, 2011:131)
The animated space around the character with its every element therefore constitutes for the character’s entire psyche.
If every element in the space of an animation is created with intention and therefore adds meaning to the whole of the film, could the same can be said about imaginary spaces? It is not often that we question the outside source of our values which are meant to be intrinsic. Yet looking at the narratives in advertised content while being mindful that each element is intentional and is supposed to evoke lifestyle envy or confirm familiar values while inserting new ones is of great importance. If we imagine a perfect day, for example, there exists a space, people, time and objects. Each of those must have been meaningful enough for us to have imagined it on our perfect day. They can represent friendship, tranquillity, success, enjoyment of life. The trouble arises when these aspirational states of mind are tied to specific products. This is how advertisements teach young children (and anyone else) to subconsciously associate a Coca-Cola with a happy family Christmas, Ariel washing detergent with a happy family and beautiful home, getting a Starbucks coffee with finally being able to catch up with that old friend or Nike sportswear with being energised. The ultimate goal for advertisers is to become a tradition, even a noun in a language creating such a world in children's minds where the non-existence of products like Google, Cola, Band-Aid, Escalator or Zipper is impossible.

In conclusion, below are some of the principles that can be used to describe the messages found between the lines in advertised content.
First of all, inserting branded products into the visualisations of aspirational everyday life leads children to believe those objects really have a function in being in that space, surrounding the moment and even supporting it. In advertisements we can usually see a space and an action that revolves around a specific branded object rather than being an event that naturally occurs. In this way, physical space also plays a role in the manipulation tactics as only bearing notions of home, happiness and social safety within the family while being occupied by certain objects. Consequently, the second principle can be derived from this train of thoughts. It is influencing a branded product to become a part of a person's identity and personality. If a person is successfully made to believe that they can achieve better relationships or academic results by including branded products in the space they inhabit then these objects are a part of their identity.
Finally, If a brand succeeds in establishing themselves as the object to signal specific virtues and values to others then it transcends being only a brand in the eyes of its target audience. A simple example to show how these tactics can be illustrated by animation is showing the audience the switching of a product from just an object to itself making up the space where a nice family interaction takes place in. The possibilities, of course, are much wider and allow for many layered metaphysical approaches.

The overconsumption of these branded products also leads back to the sustainability issue this research originally started with – the overexploitation resources and the waste generated by overconsumption. If there ever was a brand that successfully inspired people to use its product for absolutely everything from glue to chewing gum to even a mediator to a brand themed human interaction then we would indeed be living in an Orwellian world. Everyone would be convinced that no one day could pass without the use of a new piece of this product and thus every landfill and waste dump would only be filled with it making the whole society effectively revolve around it. An even grimmer picture is painted when we add to it peoples’ inability to think outside of the rules of that world merely because their understanding of that world is bound by the rules of language which has adopted brand names as nouns and verbs. Doesn’t that seem like perfect storytelling in advertising?