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Day in day out we are bombarded by hundreds of adverts and images. Some are cheap simple affairs fastened to billboards, while others are complex multi-media-million dollar campaigns. All are aimed at selling things; from records to insurance to skin cream. Image is all-important, image is the new rock-and-roll, the new art, the only brand.

Why does this matter? Because image is an illusion; it does not reflect what is inside. Are smart suits a guide to manners and civility? When a senior female executive complained of a client who had chased her round a conference table and had physically tryed to grab her, the company director replied, "did no one ever tell you, the customer is always right?"

Image is only skin deep, branding is an illusion. Branded goods are often manufactured in the same factories as normal goods, yet we pay through the nose to purchase them. Why? Because the brand costs to construct.

And yet these illusions attack us at our core - our insecurities. The images and slogans of the adverts and glossy magazines make us feel small. They create an atmosphere were their products become our only salvation from these insecurities. They sell us pain-killers to ease the pain they have created.

A theory goes that we all have insecurities, fear of ridicule, social embarrassment, being disliked, being excluded and so on. Even if only sub-conscious, it is a rare person who is unaffected by these feelings. These feelings emerge at childhood and we often battle with them for the rest of our lives. Branded images offer an image of something beyond these frailties; worlds where people are sexy, glamorous, where things are funky and by purchasing their product we're invited in! When you buy, you are buying into this desire; and it's not just rhetoric, this is a real physical reaction inside the chemistry of your brain.

The problem is that once you've purchased it the desire is still unfulfilled. You're still the same person with the same insecurities and a bit less cash. Nothing has changed, you're still not living the funky, sexy life you were invited into. The psychologist, Oliver James believes this process is a real physical one, which produces a chemical called Serotonin in the brain. This temporary increase in the Serotonin levels elicits a tiny depressive state in the brain, because the desire created by the advert remains unfulfilled. We feel a little worse than be did before, a little more insecure and so the cycle goes on. In his words, 'When expectations outstrip real outcomes, we feel aggressively resentful or depressed.' It should not matter, as it's such a tiny reaction.

Multiply this by the day in day out bombardment of hundreds of images. Multiply this by the branded millions spent on identifying, tracking, researching and taming our insecurities, by the billions spent on attatching advertising to every facet of our lives and communities. As recent research reported on the BBC showed, 'Unrealistic expectations of finding a partner with film star good looks are creating an unhappy society'. In line with the theory I've described, as consumption grows so does the suicide rate. The World Health Organisation said in 1995, 'Along with economic growth and various social transformations has come a marked increase in alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide.'

Branding works. For example unbranded Tommy Hillfiger sales: $53 Million, branded version: $847 Million. Nobody wants to admit that advertising works on them, but it does every day. As the power of advertising grows and grows, so do our insecurities. The 21st Century will be one where advertising has become nothing more than a control mechanism that we all bow down to. Oliver James again, ‘Consumer Capitalism makes money out of the disappointment and depression, the dissatisfaction and rage that are engendered by overheating aspirations and unreal social comparisons.’ Hear'Say are part of this process, the separation of individuals from their personality, of creativity from it's source.

Thankfully it appears to contains the seeds of it’s own destruction, sociology professor Michael Dreiling remarked, "The kids identifying themselves as anarchists today are mostly middle-class white kids. They are offered the neon-pleasure-dome vision of society on TV. They are promised life will be an endless Mountain Dew commercial, but they end up with jobs assembling burritos. They have a lot of anger."