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From: ald@garth.UUCP (Al Date)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,talk.environment,comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Advertising is bad
Message-ID: <80@garth.UUCP>
Date: 4 Feb 91 22:05:32 GMT
References: <856@argosy.UUCP> <156215@felix.UUCP> <1991Feb1.054640.1441@cs.ucla.edu>
Reply-To: ald@garth.UUCP (Al Date)
Distribution: na
Organization: INTERGRAPH (APD) -- Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 43

In article <1991Feb1.054640.1441@cs.ucla.edu> gast@maui.cs.ucla.edu (David Gast) writes:
>In article <156215@felix.UUCP> asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin "the Chipmunk" Sylvain) writes:
>
>
>>I must remind you that *advertising is not
>>evil*!  It is a perfectly valid method of informing the public of one's
>>goods and services.
>
>Advertising is evil.  It is misleading, invasive, threatening, etc.
>It provides no information, only slogans.  It increases the costs
>of products.  Let's face it, it costs money and someone has to pay,
>and that someone is the consumer.
>

If advertising is as bad as you say it is, it should be banned.

Of course, the same argument could be made about religion.  Surely
more harm is done by people blindly adhering to religious ideals and going
off on jihads, crusades, and inquisitions, all because of what some holy
man "advertised" as the truth.

Advertising per se, is not evil, no more than speech per se, is evil.

Whether it is immoral or unethical depends on the *content* of the 
advertising (or the speech).  There are laws against fraud and 
against false advertising.  

The remainder of advertising, which is either "true" or "innocuous" is
protected by the First Amendment.  The suppression of free speech is a 
far greater evil than advertising can ever be.  


The issue of the added costs of marketing is only relevant with respect 
the overall production costs and the competitive environment for each 
individual producer. 
 
A company may find that a certain level of advertising 
increases market share (and hence production levels) to a critical level of 
capacity, or a break-even point, 
in which case the advertising actually results in a lower cost per unit.   

--Al Date
Std. disclaimers