CANDOR ABOUT TRUTH IN ADVERTISING
At the heart of Madison Avenue’s new, elaborately engineered system of persuasion lies one fundamental premise: Each group in our society has its weaknesses and deep-seated emotional needs. If Ad Alley can uncover these psychological problems in the course of its lengthy interviews with citizens and then devise 30-second television spots that make it seem as if ordinary, everyday products are part of the soothing solution, grateful and relieved consumers will purchase the advertised goods. Agencies can make big profits by isolating and identifying each population segment’s vulnerabilities, transforming average run-of-the-mill items into magic panaceas, and then targeting their newly designed therapeutic sales pitches at the right cluster of people. The American marketing community’s exploitive brand of psychoanalysis is perhaps best described by one of its most prosperous — and candid — practitioners, Jerry Della Femina, author of From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor. In a 1981 magazine interview, the outspoken ad executive said: “Advertising deals…
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