1. Brands and marketing experts are carefully shaping consumer identities and desires through sophisticated psychological techniques and data-driven tactics. 2. The middle class consumers are the primary targets for brands, as they are most susceptible to being influenced by marketing strategies that promote either conformity or exclusivity. 3. Brands employ a range of techniques like sensory marketing, cognitive biases, and emotional engineering to hijack consumers' decision-making processes and steer their choices. 4. The proliferation of advertisements and the link between happiness and consumption have created a constant feeling of needing more, which benefits corporations at the expense of consumer well-being. 5. Awareness and critical examination of one's own purchasing decisions are the most powerful weapons against the manipulative tactics of marketing, as knowledge empowers consumers to take control of their choices.