Nader on Advertising

In an article published July 18 in Common Dreams (link), Ralph Nader says (“Growing Doubts About Advertising”) heretical things such as I’ve been saying for fifty years—ever since I got to know the field by working in it. You can see the parallels by looking at five postings on the current and ten on the previous version of LaMarotte (accessible by using the Categories feature). Indeed Nader mentions the subject of my last posting on this subject here—GM’s termination of its advertising on Facebook. Nader’s authority is the same as mine: based on observation of human behavior and on thought. But Ralph Nader’s decades-long prominence as a consumer advocate gives his pronouncements a certain radiance, as it were—which is all that advertising ever bestows on brands. My own most slashing attack has been to say that advertising is about as effective human sacrifice was in our southern continent—or in Carthage, for that matter—but a little more humane. Carthage fell to Rome eventually—and the Aztec Empire to the conquistadores.