Advertising strategist and author Ahmed Abou Zenad has launched AdEntity, a cultural nonfiction book examining how advertising has shaped modern human identity, not just consumer choices.
The book traces the evolution of human signals, including status, beauty, ambition, belonging and success, from their biological roots through different stages of civilization. According to the book, advertising transformed these concepts into a shared global language that could move across borders and cultures.
Abou Zenad argues that advertising became an important cultural framework as traditional structures such as family, tribe, religion and local communities lost influence during industrialization and globalization.
The book then turns to the growing role of artificial intelligence, recommendation systems and algorithm-driven media. It argues that these technologies are moving beyond influencing consumption and may be narrowing the diversity of human identity by rewarding similar behaviors, ambitions and values.
“The question is no longer whether advertising shapes what we buy, but whether algorithms have begun shaping who we become,” Abou Zenad writes.
AdEntity draws on evolutionary psychology, anthropology, history, media studies, behavioral economics and sociology, alongside Abou Zenad’s more than two decades of strategic advisory work with governments and global brands across the Middle East.
Source: EntArabi
