In a recent article in this journal (‘Some Contrarian Reflections On Advertising’, Think, Spring 2010, 47–50.) Professor Tibor Machan defends advertising from those who find that it is ‘anything but honorable’. According to Machan advertising is not merely honorable, but also natural, a virtual paradigm of cooperative behavior, and an essential component of human well-being. ‘If human life is a value, advertising is a value. It is a positive good.’ Machan concedes that sometimes people exposed to advertising make foolish choices, but that is explained by their lack of prudence, not any fault of advertisers. He also appeals to our sense of fair play: advertisers are like us – people trying to earn a living, and even issues a veritable cri de coeur: Who among us hasn't tried to promote a book we've written?

Let us begin with a summary of advertising as Machan imagines it to be: Two individuals meet. One has something he'd like to sell. The other does, from time to time, need to purchase goods, so is not a priori hostile toward learning about the existence of a new product or the availability of an old product. The first individual does something with the intention of making his product salient in the mind of the second. The second may choose to follow up on the suggestion implicit in the first person's behavior, or he may choose not to. This is a transaction with potential benefit to both parties.

Machan's portrait of advertising omits important details. Once we fill in the missing details, we will see that advertising is essentially unfriendly and uncooperative. Moreover, Machan's most ambitious claims are the result of fallacious reasoning.

Some of the details Machan leaves out: (1) The corporate sponsors of marketing and advertising have resources unavailable to ordinary citizens, and are primarily concerned to increase profits for wealthy shareholders – and those profits are not, as Machan suggests, merely a means to allow them to make a living, but are a means whereby the already rich and powerful increase their wealth and power. (2) Machan omits details about the content of advertising. Today most advertising is ‘aspirational’; adverts do not chiefly aim to provide information about a product, they portray a world which citizens aspire towards, and attempt to connect specific products to that world. At the extreme, this means an advertisement aims to create a preference for Brand A rather than Brand B, even when there is no qualitative difference between the two. (3) Corporations target specific populations. They study a population, test ads on focus groups, and only after they have done so do they make an ad widely available. (4) Advertising exploits design flaws in human nature; just as we have a propensity toward health problems because our bodies were not designed for an environment rich in sugar and fat, so too we have the propensity to acquire beliefs and desires which do not necessarily further our considered or long-term interest. Our brains were not designed for an advertising rich environment. Below I focus primarily upon points (2) and (4), but the other points will be mentioned along the way.

An Ambitious Claim Based Upon Faulty Reasoning

Machan claims that advertising is unqualifiedly good, that its goodness is part of the goodness of life. Nothing in what he says suffices to establish either claim. Machan draws attention to the fact that advertising is part of our current system of social organization. It is true that we manage to live within our existing system, and, some of us (but surely not all of us or even a majority of those on the planet) actually flourish. However, that is to say nothing about the role that advertising actually plays in such goodness as there is in the world. The fact appealed to doesn't warrant the conclusion being drawn. An analogy: If one afternoon I find myself in the Arizona desert, and I rest for a moment in the shade of an enormous building which happens to house the machines of a polluting industry, my brief rest does not constitute a proof that the industry in question is a necessary component of human well-being.

Under our current economic and political setup we must endure advertising as part of the price of acquiring what we want or need. It is good to acquire apples and books, but no law of economics or psychology says that one must endure advertising in order to do so. There need only be some form of communication between producers and citizens. Machan's most ambitious goal – to show that advertising is actually necessary for human flourishing – fails.

Product Parity: The Twins Who Would Be Different

Imagine a world where people acquire a taste for a bluish sweet liquid. Like us, their preference for sweet things has roots in their evolutionary history. In that world, the two most popular beverages are bluish and sweet, and their producers compete for market share – even while knowing that most people can't tell the beverages apart if they are allowed to taste them in an environment free from the distraction of packaging and labeling.

How can a person on this distant planet actually claim to prefer one blue beverage over another? There need not be any difference in the actual substances contained within the distinctively different packaging. It is enough if the advertisers, marketers, and psychologists create different associations with the two beverages. One might be the brand favored by the young and reckless. The other might be simply fun, or ‘traditional’.

Since anyone who is blindfolded, and thus deprived of access to the visual cues provided by the packaging, is unable to tell them apart, it is tempting to conclude that there is really only one drink with two different names – but, as the exact recipe for the two concoctions is secret, we cannot be sure.

That means, nearly enough, that the chief difference between buying Brand A and buying Brand B is who makes the profit. But, then again, since we do not know exactly who gets those profits, we have, in practice, no way to distinguish between the two beverages – apart from the corporate activity known as branding. Since the vast majority of citizens on this strange planet are not shareholders of corporation A or of corporation B, you might think that most people wouldn't care a hoot about whether they purchase beverage A or beverage B, yet this is not the case.

The two beverages are sold and marketed throughout this world. And recently, in response to health concerns in richer parts of that world, sales have fallen, leading the producers to target other markets.

What are we to make of this situation? There is a pattern of thought, almost a reflex, that says: ‘Well, if companies spend money, they thereby create jobs; and job creation is an unqualified good.’ How good is it to devote human resources to persuade people that Brand A is better than Brand B? People have jobs thereby, but, to what extent are those jobs either meaningful for individuals or beneficial to society? The jobs are available because individuals with money are willing to pay someone to do them – but the wealthy possess no monopoly on wisdom or virtue. The question must be: why should society's resources be spent on the task of persuading us to buy brand A instead of Brand B?

To the extent that sweet, bluish beverages have a value, the value accrues to an entity which we might label ‘Either A-or-B’. Any value here comes from an unlearned disposition to like stimulation and sweet things, a product of evolutionary history, a preference which serves our other-worldly counterparts and us poorly when refined sugar is more widely available than mushrooms after rain.

While these blue drinks are not particularly healthy, nutrient-rich items, it is only natural to like something sweet and stimulating. In fact, many people find these blue beverages irresistible, and today our otherworldly counterparts face an epidemic of obesity. Should we say that the explanation is a lack of prudence? Without analyzing ‘prudence’ just yet, we can concede that there is an element of individual choice here, while also claiming that advertising is one causal factor contributing to the epidemic. A thorough inquiry would also need to take account of the number of advertisements: that is surely one source of the power they have to influence behavior. (According to the advertising historian Eric Clark, ‘By the time he or she leaves High School, the typical American has seen over a quarter of a million TV commercials.’ Quoted in Michael Dawson, The Consumer Trap. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 97).

The health costs of the blue beverages are not part of the price their producers pay to do business; that price is paid by citizens. Citizens pay the price in cash and ill health, while wealthy shareholders become wealthier.

The world with sweetish blue beverages represents an imaginary and extreme case of product parity. Yet, even in the actual world, companies have promoted products while aware that competing products were not inferior. A list of firms who have marketed products that are either in no way different from those of competitors, or possess advantages not noticed or not needed by ordinary users reads like a ‘Who's Who’ of household brands from my North American childhood.

So far as one could tell from reading Machan's essay, advertisers limit themselves to making products attention grabbing and memorable. He neglected to mention that they also aim to create a preference for products in no way better than the competitors’.

Prudence and Our Divided Brain

Machan tells us that the audience for advertising should be prudent. By appealing to a lack of prudence, Machan can account for the fact that not every advertiser-citizen interaction turns out well. In other words, he places responsibility for any errors on citizens, not corporations. Since corporations have vastly more resources than mere citizens, that seems dubious at the outset, but let us think about it.

What is prudence? People who buy impulsively or do not do their homework before they shop lack prudence. There is, however, a problem here which the blunt instrument of ‘prudence’ doesn't suffice to capture. Current thinking is that we have, in effect, two minds in our brain, two importantly different thinking styles. The more ancient mind allows very quick reactions with great motivational force. The newer mind has the ability to think things through, and only it can consider our long-term interests. Some writers say that the older thinking system is serving the interests of our genes, and often does not serve our interests as individuals. Prior to any advert, my ancient mind is shouting at me: ‘Consume!’ or ‘GOOD!’ when I encounter a sweet foodstuff or drink.

Information is not always shared by our two minds. Even when I know that the famous Mueller-Lyer lines are of equal length, I continue to believe there is a difference between the embedded line in such a figure as <——— > and that in >———<. I continue to experience the illusion, even after I measure the embedded lines.

Among the habitual and automatic ways in which we process information, there is a bias, a tendency to prefer what is familiar. That tendency can be overridden, but to do so requires mental resources. Since we prefer what is familiar, a heavily advertised product will tend to be favored. If I am in a hurry because I am running late, and am tired from a day of work, then my chance of being influenced by an advert is stronger. A constellation of factors influence our actions, but some of those factors are neither random nor natural, having been designed by other human beings to push us in a direction that maximizes their profits.

Insofar as advertising appeals to our older mind, it relies upon and capitalizes upon a mismatch between the environment in which our brains were designed to operate and the modern world. We are not designed to operate in an environment rich in fat and sugar. Nor were the habits of thought which come to us naturally designed for an advert-rich environment.

We do not meet advertisers as equals. Advertisers have the dual advantages of the weakness of our older mind and the fantastic resources available to the wealthy. In 1992, American businesses spent a trillion dollars on all forms of marketing. The isolated citizen meets an advert that has been created by a team of marketing and sales specialists who have consulted with psychologists, mined available data about potential targets, constructed an image of the target audience, tested the advert with focus groups, designed and re-designed the advert. Citizens about to make a purchase do not have similar resources. It just isn't a fair fight.

‘Aspirational’ Advertising

Since the 1950's advertisers have, for the most part, not been in the business of providing facts or arguments. The creators of advertisements have even been known to boast that they inspire us with a picture of our dreams. That claim deserves consideration. Can you actually picture my dreams? Can I picture your dreams?

Insofar as my hopes and fears involve particular individuals, only someone who knows my friends and family can picture my dreams. Hence, advertising content must be in a very real sense general. It can only picture our hopes and fears in general. As human beings we have such common problems as maintaining relationships with friends and partners, and caring for children and aging parents. Advertising attempts to connect such facets of our existence with whatever happens to be advertised.

There are many ways to describe the content of adverts. As Kundera complained in the quotation with which we began, they tend to be kitsch. They also tend to be superficial, or even unbelievable when they portray the ideal couple with ideal children. Sometimes, the designers of adverts even deliberately build in a little imperfection, but, in any case, adverts trivialize our common humanity. They diminish us and clutter public space.

It is worth pausing to reflect upon what I've called the kitchiness and superficiality of ads. Why is the emotion portrayed there or called up in us false? Philosophers studying the emotions make a distinction between sincere and insincere expression of emotion. False emotions or gestures are designed with a specific goal in mind; they are not natural or spontaneous. We do not, however, accuse actors of insincerity when they act. And, many times it is professional actors who we see in advertising. What is the difference between art and advertising? The goal of advertising is simply to promote a product, not to encourage reflection. Art encourages us toward self-reflection in a way that mere advertising does not and cannot. In a work of great literature or film, we experience emotions which mirror those of the characters depicted. We experience human ignorance as the partial knowledge of a character plays itself out in complex social settings. We experience the resulting conflicts – both between individuals and within the psyche of a single individual. We see fictional characters acting wisely and foolishly, and we see them at moments of joy as well as moments of suffering.

Consider, for example, Graham Greene's The Quiet American. The narrator, Fowler, feels great affection for the eponymous American, Pyle. Yet, as Greene tells the story, it makes sense when Fowler helps the Vietnamese kill Pyle. Full of theories about how to spread democracy, Pyle had supplied explosives to a local warlord who killed fifty people in an act of terrorism. That fact came to override Fowler's affection. Yet, while every aspect of their relationship was fraught with contradiction and ambiguity – not the least because Pyle fell in love with Fowler's partner, and she moved in with him – there was genuine friendship between Pyle and Fowler. Such complexity and the reaction its depiction evokes in a reader is the stuff of art.

Advertising avoids all such complexity and ambiguity. It avoids anything which hints of a need for interpretation or thought. Such complexities would distract from the advert's commercial purpose. Nor does the advertiser especially want more sophisticated audiences of the sort that art creates. The skills of active self-reflection and compassion encouraged by art are precisely the sort of thing that could lead a citizen to avoid junk food or boycott a company whose products are produced in sweat shops. Put differently, advertisers like slick comedy more than tragedy. With its facile evocation of emotion, advertising mimics and mocks the universality of art. Kundera recognized this in the quotation with which we began, and it is worth quoting him a bit further:

Like political propaganda or outright lies, an advert works best when it contains an element of truth. Advertising does stir real desires and emotions within an audience, but respect is lacking. Kundera is right to connect the businessman with the ideologue and the politician. In each case, genuine emotions are conjured up and trapped, made to work for those who commissioned the advert.

Art encourages capacities of sympathy and self-reflection. Advertising does not. Art allows us to see others differently, and opens up possibilities of self-knowledge. Advertising is myopic and stifling, self-absorbed and limited. To the extent our public spaces are filled with adverts, our inner worlds become limited.

Prudence

Having made this larger complaint, let us, nonetheless, reflect upon the content of aspirational advertising. If we were to turn an aspirational ad into an argument or claim, it might sound something like this: ‘You, too, can be as healthy and happy as the people you see here if you buy this product.’ If we take the time to put it into words, it sounds implausible; in fact, we know it to be untrue. Yet, aspirational advertising works. This implausibility, which emerges if we slow down and take the time to express the advert's content in prose, is another indication that aspirational advertising aims at the more primitive parts of our brain. It takes mental resources to de-code the advert and meet it on equal ground. Advertising represents a mental or attentional tax – a tax on our exercise of wisdom or prudence.

I have suggested that advertising might actually diminish our ultimate values – such ultimate values as self-reflection and compassion. Machan has a different view. He allows that an advertiser-citizen transaction may be less than optimal if the citizen fails to be prudent; but, even then, the advert stays on the surface and cannot reach deep into our souls:

Machan allows that advertisers can influence our behavior, but claims they cannot influence our basic values. Yet, even such influence as he concedes will mean that we make more expensive purchase, purchases we haven't budgeted for, or purchase items whose quality is not known to us and turns out to be lower than others available. Moreover, the bulk of advertising is not devoted to items like apples or books whose value is clear.

Let us focus on the claim that the influence of advertising is weak. Recall that the issue is an ethical one: How honorable an activity is advertising? Machan's concession undermines his defense. Advertising will work especially well when the audience hasn't got time or energy to overcome the judgments of the older brain. Adverts have been placed into our environment without our prior consent, and are so designed that when we are in a hurry or tired, they regularly influence us, thereby taxing our attentional resources and costing us money. To resort to the vernacular, this is a sneaky business, and not at all honorable. An honorable advert would not need to rely upon weaknesses in our design and could face us openly and honestly, with complete disclosure.

Nor is advertising limited to clothing, lottery tickets, food and books. The modern corporation's weapons of mass distraction are also used to sell more significant items such as insurance policies, retirement plans, and a college education. As the psychologist Stanovich stresses, while such decisions might come only a few times in our lifetime, they are precisely for that reason all the more important. Indeed, even graver issues are at stake. Wars and invasions are advertised and promoted with the same methods used to promote sweet carbonated beverages.

Important Questions

Machan objects to a too-facile portrayal of advertisers as evil; yet, when we consider the institution of advertising more carefully, we find that advertising is not a good thing. Nonetheless, genuine questions remain. Our topic should not be merely the activities of any one group of people in our society. Machan's intuition is perfectly correct. We should not let ourselves fall into the trap of focusing only upon the institution of advertising. We should examine how the activities of advertisers both reflect and contribute to the broader nature of our society, and especially its injustice and inequality. We should be asking about the forms of social organization we should have.

At the start of his defense of advertising, Machan cited an article of mine (‘Creating a Cultural Niche for the A-Social?’, Think, Spring/Summer 2008, 59–66.), and suggested that it was representative of a widespread prejudice against advertising. In that article, I had suggested that when we think about social problems, we should focus upon social structures and institutions, and I mentioned advertising in passing as an institution with negative effects. Machan focuses upon individuals, not institutions. I have now attempted to shift the focus back to social questions: What sort of society do we wish to live in? What sort of institutions should we have?

Freedom and Coercion

Do we freely choose to be exposed to advertising? Whenever we enter a public space, we are exposed to advertising. We may not carefully attend to every ad that comes our way, but our common spaces are rich in adverts.

We are at a real disadvantage because we must enter the market place to buy things, and we simply must enter into social relations with other human beings if we are to be fully human and healthy. To enter public space is to become an unwilling target of advertising.

True Prudence Means Active Resistance

If we borrow Machan's term and label the state of mind which allows a person to resist advertising as ‘prudence’, then we can say that this virtue consists in active resistance to the messages of advertisers and the cultivation of habits of thought and action which make resistance possible. Habits of thoughtfulness need a free space uncluttered by the cloying kitsch images of the modern capitalist corporation – something increasingly difficult to find.

Concluding Remark

For the most part, advertising parodies our common humanity. In and of itself that is despicable, but when we add the fact that this is all done to increase the wealth of a small minority of already wealthy individuals, we see it is a form of high tech badness unprecedented in human history.Footnote ¹