« VOCABULARY: BILIOUS BRANGLOMANE EDITION | Main | From August 2010 and TechCrunch’s delirious preview of Healthcare.gov: »

October 27, 2013

"If this hell’s-dance of spending and saving were to stop for a moment, what would happen?

If all the advertising in the world were to shut down tomorrow, would people still go on buying more soap,

eating more apples, giving their children more vitamins, roughage, milk, olive oil, scooters and laxatives, learning more languages by gramophone, hearing more virtuosos by radio, re-decorating their houses, refreshing themselves with more non-alcoholic thirst-quenchers, cooking more new, appetizing dishes, affording themselves that little extra touch which means so much? Or would the whole desperate whirligig slow down, and the exhausted public relapse upon plain grub and elbow-grease?" — DOROTHY SAYERS, MURDER MUST ADVERTISE

Posted by gerardvanderleun at October 27, 2013 2:12 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

I strongly suspect that most products simply do not need advertising and the resulting increased profits could be better spent (maybe on a superior product, at least a little more in the pockets of their workers).

But ads never work on me anyway. I've never bought anything based on an ad, ever. I know people who do though. I know a knucklehead who bought that stupid Axe bodywash because of the ads. So maybe I'm not the right person to analyze this.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at October 27, 2013 5:10 PM

Gerard, you have a faint tinge of one in favour of sumptuary laws. You appear to cite this Sayers quote with approval, but it is classic communism.

The intended implication is clear - advertising causes people to want foolish things, which is a minor effect, the real effect being simply to let consumers know what is out there.

The smug superiority of the quote, as if the bloody Sayers woman knows better that us what we want or need, is infuriating.

Posted by: Fred Z at October 27, 2013 8:53 PM

Almost no advertising identifies new items or gives the slightest useful information about it. Most advertising is to remind people of existing well-known products or to associate a lifestyle or feeling to a product people already know about, to get them to buy it. In other words, it isn't so much about consumer awareness as trying to increase or solidify market share: not a service, but predatory. Which is fine in a free market sense, but there's nothing smug about pointing out how little use it is to us.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at October 28, 2013 11:49 AM

"how little use it is to us"

Classic commie, wanting to impose your world view on us. You don't like advertising, its "icky", it's useless, even though you are forced to admit it works.

Me, I am what I am, a hairless monkey, full of this and that, weird likes and dislikes, including desires to "associate a lifestyle or feeling" with my beer.

The whole advertising is predatory thing is condescendingly offensive - you think the poor stupes need you to look after them. We don't, we enjoy our vile appetites, we enjoy being persuaded to buy crap, and we despise prigs.

Posted by: Fred Z at October 28, 2013 8:50 PM

Fred, maybe you could dial back the condescension, straw man bashing, and spite a bit. You're getting straw and calumny all over the blog.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at October 29, 2013 10:44 AM

Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)