Preface Introduction The Birth of Advertising and Commercial Culture A Carnival of Conspicuous Consumption Broadcasting Revolution, Advertising Evolution The New Economics and Science of Advertising Living the Commercial Life Health Claims and the Problem of Fraud Advertising and the Consuming Child The Economics and Ethics of Selling Sin Conclusion Notes Index
A colorful history of advertising that makes the case for its necessity in a free-market society.
John Hood is President of the John Locke Foundation, a public policy think tank based in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he also serves as publisher of the foundation's monthly newspaper, the Carolina Journal. A professional writer whose articles have appeared in such publications as The New Republic, National Review, Reason, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, he is the author of Investor Politics and The Heroic Enterprise.
Hood provides a fascinating look into the world of advertising and
beyond to support his view that advertising provides a societal
good: it promotes freedom of choice, competition, and innovation.
As written by Hood, the evolution of advertising is quite an
interesting journey. Although advertising is generally regarded as
a modern phenomenon, the author traces the growth of promotion and
commerce back to cobblers in Babylonia who hung shoes on their shop
doors 5,000 years ago. Merchants of ancient Rome used such
advertising techniques as pictures, brand names, and slogans to
differentiate their wares. Each century has added its own stamp to
the art of advertising, with town criers, handbills, newspapers,
radio, and television all providing new ways to reach successive
generations of consumers. Hood notes that no less an advertiser
than Benjamin Franklin used advertising to differentiate his famous
stove from others that would damage the eyes … and shrivel the
skin. He examines a wide range of advertising topics, including
conspicuous consumption, product health claims, and economic and
societal factors. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate
and graduate marketing students, faculty, researchers, and
practitioners, as well as anyone interested in advertising.
*Choice*
Consultant and journalist Hood reacts to how Americans feel in
general about advertising by reminding them that marketing fulfills
desires and demand while increasing profits and often making or
breaking whole businesses and industries. Along with very
well-chosen (and very funny) examples of how Americans feel and
deal with advertising as represented in popular culture. Hood is
brutally honest about why some may perceive advertising as a trail
of lies, showing that in fact the industry is held to a rather
strict set of standards and tends to react to that same consumer
desire and demand that helps to define it.
*Reference & Research Book News*
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