It's no accident that the rise of modern advertising coincides with the rise of mass production. As capitalism became better and better at making more and more stuff, it required new methods that would convince people to keep buying. Today's hyper-consumerism is driven by ever more sophisticated advertising and public relations techniques. The specific product is secondary. What they're really selling is lifestyle, ideology and sometimes, even war.

Sut Jhally is Professor of Communications at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is the founder and executive director of the Media Education Foundation and the author of The Codes of Advertising. He co-directed the critically acclaimed documentary, Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire.