In our urban world, in the streets where we walk, in the buses we take, in the magazines we read, on walls, on screens, we are surrounded by images of an alternative way of life. We may remember or forget these images, but briefly, we take them in, and for a moment they stimulate our imagination, either by way of memory, or anticipation. But where is this other way of life? It's a language of words and images which calls out to us wherever we go, wherever we are. Where do they exist, these fabulous rewards and objects and people? Where do they belong to? Here? There? or Nowhere? They come with us everywhere. We take them away in our minds. We see them in our dreams.
Advertising appeals to a way of life we aspire to but have not yet achieved. A publicity picture suggests that if we buy what it is offering, our life will be different from what it is. Not only will our home be different, but all our relationships will become radiant because of our new possessions; but we can only achieve such radiance if we have money. And so publicity also works on our anxieties about money, urging each of us to scramble competitively to get more. Making money appears as if it were itself magical. According to the rules of the dream, those who do not have this power, and those who lack glamour, become faceless, almost non-existent. Publicity both promises and threatens this play upon fear; often the fear of not being desirable, and of being unenviable. It suggests that you are inadequate as you are and consoles you with a promise of a dream.
— John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972