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Advertising I Fear
Sure, as John Kenneth Galbraith argued, advertising can encourage people to buy things that may not make them happy. The solution to the advertising problem, however, is not less advertising but more. A society with a lot of advertising is a society in which advertising is not very powerful. In any case, the competitive cacophony of the market place where the very desperateness of the advertisers is itself an advert for their impotence is no real danger.
The real danger is not from Madison Avenue. At the very worst, when Madison Avenue tells us how white our shirts can be, we end up with lighter pockets but whiter shirts. It's political advertising, which often creates social images that fuel the politics of hatred, where the real danger lies. Even in the best of democracies, political advertising is nowhere near as competitive as in the market for deodorant and the product being sold is much more dangerous.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on May 1, 2006 at 07:12 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
It's political advertising, which often creates social images that fuel the politics of hatred, where the real danger lies.
Luckily for you, there's been a serious attempt to regulate political speech advertising in the US in the past two decades. I'll make sure to send Mr.s McCain and Feingold both some thank you notes on your behalf.
I'm busting your chops above but seriously, Alex, I find this puzzling. In what instances are you thinking of where political advertising creates hatred?
It seems to me that the greatest harm caused by political ads is to politicians' feelings.
If you're classifying, say, anti-semitic propoganda as "advertising," well, that's a highly unorthodox use of the term.
Posted by: c-cipher at May 1, 2006 8:28:35 AM
For an orthogonal view (or at least one that sees some virtues in political advertising, though in a perhaps-unexpected areat), see John Geer's book:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/169963.ctl
Posted by: Tim at May 1, 2006 9:50:44 AM
political advertising is nowhere near as competitive as in the market for deodorant
There's an old Bloom County cartoon of a television ad: "You are a Bolshevik Weenie if you Don't Vote for Senator Glump"
What is the likelihood that I will change my preferences for political leaders compared to my preference for deodorant? I would argue that it's possible to change political preferences past the margins through advertising, but think about how different the political "bundles" people require from a candidate are: persuading people would require addressing a far more complex set of preferences than smelling nice or wanting to be cool.
@c-cipher: political advertising often works by highlighting differences--i.e. the term of a "wedge issue" to build divides in a population that did not exist before. It's hard to believe that this improves social welfare in and of itself.
Posted by: Allan Friedman at May 1, 2006 9:58:18 AM
c-cipher: Look at political advertising in Germany, circa 1930.
Political advertising suffers from a "one-off" effect. It is very rare to have elections more often than biannually. Such elections usually spur at most two serious rounds of advertising, one lasting about two months (three for a runoff), and the other three.
There is very little use (and therefore effort) to build up a brand name in such an environment. So LBJ can run the "Daisy" commercial, get the effect he wants for the election in three days, and trust that the country will have mostly forgotten (and if not, forgiven) the gross misrepresentation before the next election.
An even stronger effect exists for direct mail, fundraisers, and rallys. Things are often said that would never be said in a public forum, and many a politician has been brought down by the revelation of these statements.
Technology has worsened the effect. Our attention spans are shorter, and the ability to narrowcast a message is enhanced. Gerrymandering has made extremist pandering a requirement.
The solution is a skeptical audience. Good luck.
Posted by: Nathan Zook at May 1, 2006 10:09:53 AM
Without question, propaganda is political advertising.
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at May 1, 2006 10:13:37 AM
Another problem with excessive advertising is that it reduces the efficacy of the legitimate informative function of advertising. Information glut is a major national problem. It's better to be over "informed" and cynical than neither, but things can come full circle. To believe nothing is arguably to believe everything.
Posted by: michael vassar at May 1, 2006 11:42:09 AM
The solution to the advertising problem, however, is not
less advertising but more. A society with a lot of advertising
is a society in which advertising is not very powerful.
Silliness.
Advertising tilts the consumers either way. You either buy Adidas or Nike shoes. Advertising is Hotelling's Main Street location, and the central location has the highest rent.
So low global advertising is as powerful as much advertising.
Posted by: Oskar Shapley at May 1, 2006 3:54:34 PM
A society with lots of advertising is a society where one ad may not be powerful, but advertising surely is, and more so than in a society with less advertising. The desperate cacophony your talking about also sounds a lot like unwanted cultural pollution. What's good about that?
Posted by: Dan K at May 1, 2006 5:37:16 PM
I had initially read Alex as saying that there isn't enough political advertising, and was planning to defend (in part) BCRA. One good (the best?) way to change the lack of competition in political advertising is to move away from a first past the post electoral system.
Posted by: washerdreyer at May 1, 2006 11:45:01 PM
Maybe the question should focus on public advertising vs. private advertising in the political realm. After all if a society/government/law prohibits political advertising, information/influence/brags/complaints are transmitted through other means (i.e. evening news, newspaper/internet/radio reports, public speeches - the free kind, church/religious congregations, etc....). People communicate, especially about matters of government. Turning it into a private industry shapes the practice in a particular manner (good or bad....you decide). ABC Inc. may feel better sponsoring an ad for a politician rather than just giving the guy money.
Speaking of advertising, how can I get you blog site not to hide part of my text under your book ads while I'm typing? It feels like driving with one eye covered.
Posted by: Chairman Mao at May 2, 2006 2:12:31 AM
If the distinction is Nike vs Adidas, imagine an ad for keeping your old shoes.If the solution is "more ads" (more ads for me to skip over with the DVR!), presumably the ads would need to cancel out. If you only have ads for new shoes, whatever the brand, the true ad is that you should get new shoes. Or a new car. Or whatever.
Posted by: Tom at May 2, 2006 7:09:52 AM
I love the tobacco company ads that proclaim - Don't buy tobacco! Talk about a Brave New World??!! It's as though a political candidate spent his own money to take out an ad for his opponent. Of course, tobacco companies have to sell more tobacco to finance more ads to discourage people from smoking! I think someone's putting someone else on.
Posted by: Robert Speirs at May 2, 2006 10:57:53 AM
My first beef with advertising would be that I suspect it's inefficient.
It seems like a classic arms-race situation, where if Ford and Toyota each spend a billion on advertising, most of what they're doing is cancelling each other's advertising out. Yes, I do learn information about rack-and-pinion steering and MPG, and yes, I may get more pleasure out of my Tacoma now that I have been persuaded that it boosts my virility. (Maybe my wife also gets pleasure out that.)
But my gut intuition is that after a certain point, the hard information has been learned and the social images have been internalized. Most of the marginal impact goes to tipping me ever-so-slightly in favor of one firm's product instead of the other.
Doesn't this argue for a Pigouvian tax on advertising?
Posted by: Mike D at May 2, 2006 12:26:59 PM
As you said, the solution is not less advertising, but more -- in this case, more entrants in the marketplace. The two major parties have created a duopoloy, and used state and federal law, along with "balanced" FEC appointments, to erect barriers to the entry of other voices.
Posted by: Paul P at May 2, 2006 3:25:01 PM
As you said, the solution is not less advertising, but more -- in this case, more entrants in the marketplace. The two major parties have created a duopoly, and used state and federal law, along with "balanced" FEC appointments, to erect barriers to the entry of other voices.
If there were more viable candidates in each race, they'd each have to rely more on their own merits and less on voters hating the other guy more.
Posted by: Paul P at May 2, 2006 3:29:26 PM
Paul, proportional representation is a far better solution, and only equally unlikely.
I would sort of like to have a Pigouvian tax on ads. But.....
This is an especially tricky area. You have to calculate out better information vs misinformation and manipulation, the relative amounts of which are disputed not just by advertisers but by viewers. When you consider how poorly the US government understands this kind of economics (we don't even have taxes on coal plant emissions, or toxic agricultural runoff) it's a lost cause.
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