LINK: History of advertising industry and its future

From the article:

"By the mid-1920s agency copywriters had already figured out how to appeal to the more psychologically complex aspects of consumer choice: print ads began to prey on the individual’s fear of social failure, and radio announcers told tales of how their competitors’ products would lead to illness. Unchecked by any sort of regulatory body, advertising agencies had the freedom to pitch whatever worked best. Over the span of just a few years, advertisers successfully convinced the great unwashed to brush their teeth regularly, rinse with mouthwash and smoke as many cigarettes as humanly possible."

"Ad agencies had mastered the ability to sell the American consumer products that they had never heard of and had no real need for. This was the cunning genius of advertising."

"Consider the sheer superfluity of certain kinds of goods which this forcing of turnover entails. We are deluged with things which we do not wear, which we lose, which go out of style, which make unwelcome presents for our friends, which disappear anyhow – fountain pens, cigar lighters, cheap jewelry, patent pencils, mouth washes, key rings, Mahjong sets, automobile accessories – endless jiggers and doodads and contrivances. Here the advertiser plays on the essential monkey within us, and uses up mountains of good iron ore and countless sturdy horse power to fill – a few months later – the wagon of the junk man."

Read full article here: http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/84/pop_nihilism_adverting_eats_itself.html