Leo Burnett, a 20th century advertising executive, once boldly stated, “Good advertising does more than just disseminate information. This penetrates the audience's mind with desires and beliefs. Years ago, kids had a few dolls and a Lego set, and that was all they needed. But today's children are raised differently. Money buys them iPads, laptops, video games, but somehow they always want more. In the contemporary world of ever-increasing consumption, the needs and desires of individuals have begun to be shaped according to the commercial and cultural environment to which they are exposed. The advertising industry profits from people's constant desire to live better lives and own nicer things. Production is increasing at high speed for the same reason. This essay will discuss the fundamental purpose of advertising – to convince customers that they not only need, but also want a certain product – by comparing and contrasting the views of John Kenneth Galbraith, a noted academic, and by FA Hayek, professor and Nobel laureate in economics. .Advertising is a powerful phenomenon today; much more powerful than a few years ago, when social networks and the Internet were not part of everyone's daily life. With such a variety of media channels, contemporary marketing has become extremely influential. Not only that, but the extent to which consumers let ads penetrate their minds has fascinated academics and psychologists for years. Many studies in academia attempt to explain the effect of advertising on consumers: how do they manage to promote their products so successfully; do people really need it? For example, an article by Melanie Dempsey and Andrew Mitchell on this specific topic...... middle of article....... 2011. .Shah, Anup. “Creating the consumer”. Global problems. Np, May 14, 2003. Web. December 5, 2011. < http://www.globalissues.org/article/236/creating-the-consumer>. “The things you own end up owning you. » FightClubQuotes.net. Np, and Web. December 5, 2011..Thoma, Mark. “John Kenneth Galbraith’s Contributions to Economics.” The economist's point of view. Np, April 30, 2006. Web. December 5, 2011. .Thompson, Ethan. “John Kenneth Galbraith “The Addiction Effect”. AdCrit. January 19, 2011. The web. December 5, 2011. < http://adcrit-tamucc.blogspot.com/2011/01/john-kenneth-galbraith-dependence.html>.