
In Paris, an anti-ad insurgency grows - crocus
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-france-no-ads1-2009feb01,0,5124576.story
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zupatol
The article links the anti-ad movement to anti-capitalist feelings.

Advertising is not essential to capitalism. While economists built countless
models that show the superiority of competition and free markets, advertising
is something they have barely studied. One of the fundamental assumptions of
most models is that consumer preferences are fixed. Advertising works by
changing user preferences, so the typical economic model will not be able to
say anything about its effect on the economy.

I studied economics in the early nineties, and I remember having a look at the
literature about advertising. There was a study that showed cigarette
companies competed only through advertising, leading only to higher prices,
not to better products. Another study showed that the introduction of
advertising for glasses led to lower prices, and concluded that in that case
advertising had helped competition work better. I think there was one weird
model that somehow argued advertising was good because it allowed people to
enjoy life more.

I concluded that there is a good part and a bad part of advertising. The good
part is conveying information that helps making better choices. The bad part
is bringing products to your attention regardless if they are good or not. My
personal impression is that the bad part drowns out the good one.

~~~
tome
This reminds me of J K Galbraith's book which I am reading at the moment:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Affluent_Society>

His thesis is that private production is increased by advertising generating
artificial wants in consumers: wants that were neither there before, nor very
fulfilling to them.

~~~
corentin
So, if (let's say) you raise a group of boys isolated from the rest of the
world until they are 15 and then, all of a sudden, tell them: "oh, by the way,
there's this thing called 'girls', have a look, you'll probably like it",
you've created an artificial want?

It's true that before seeing the ad for a MegaBananaChoco cereal bar, I didn't
want to eat one. Yet I've always wanted to eat nice things. That's what's so
great about ads: they provide information about good stuff.

~~~
tome
No, Galbraith would say, I think, (and I would agree with him) that sexual and
social needs are innate and would express themselves even if information about
possible means of expression is suppressed.

You might as well say "raise a group of boys without clothes" and then tell
them "there's this thing called clothes that will keep you warm". It doesn't
matter if you don't tell them: they'll still be cold.

On the other hand, no one has a need for a MegaBananaChoco bar in particular.
If you never tell anyone about the bar, they're not going to suffer from not
having it.

~~~
anamax
> On the other hand, no one has a need for a MegaBananaChoco bar in
> particular. If you never tell anyone about the bar, they're not going to
> suffer from not having it.

You're cheating. While it's fair to say that no one has a "need" for a
specific bit of sugary goodness, it's not fair to say that no one needs better
food and won't suffer from not having it.

Yes, the "need" for better food may be expressed, but that's rather
uninteresting without a mechanism for determining how to satisfy that need.
The "eat Reese's pieces" ad is actionable. "Eat good food" is both useless and
uneconomic in that there's no point in someone paying to say it.

~~~
turkishrevenge
You're still missing the point tome is trying to make. Unless there is an
innate need for a particular thing, often on the basis of utility as it
relates to survival or reproduction, a person cannot want what he is ignorant
of. Only through exposure, can a person form a desire and adequately
articulate wanting something, as in "I want to buy _Reese's_."

~~~
anamax
> Unless there is an innate need for a particular thing, often on the basis of
> utility as it relates to survival or reproduction, a person cannot want what
> he is ignorant of.

That fails wrt "good food". There is no innate need for any specific food.
Yet, there is a generic expressed need.

Heck - it even fails wrt clothing and warm. There are many ways to be warm.
(When my cat gets cold, she doesn't put on pants.)

> You're still missing the point tome is trying to make.

I'm pointing out that the interesting version is wrong and the correct version
is uninteresting.

Yes, one can't want a specific solution of which one is unaware, but that's
not a very interesting result. One can easily want a solution to a generic
problem ("cold", "food") and thus value information wrt specific solutions
("little black dress", "Reese's").

