Advertising

1. "Focusing on individuals or groups of individuals in test studies frequently concludes that advertising plays no significant role in decision making. An examination of advertising as a cultural phenomenon, on the other hand, suggests something quite different, a conclusion that might explain why revenues for advertising keep growing and why businesses continue to advertise."

This passage begins to rationalize, I think, a question I find very unclear: why is advertising so important if its affects are so unclear? The author then goes on to describe advertising's power, how it reaches into our psyche and preys upon, well, our greed.

2. First, the author defines advertising. The author then describes the subliminal power of advertising and contends repeatedly that it works despite a lack of concrete supporting evidence. He describes advertising basically as one cog in a machine of commercial selling power. His final point is that our culture revolves around the television, and so television advertising subliminally affects us all, "what television does is deliver audiences to advertisers."

3. Advertising is a psychological ploy in the first place: it is an elaborate game in which the advertiser must simultaneously entertain and inform while disguising the fact that it is trying to do so. An advertiser who does not understand the psychology of what they are trying to accomplish will come across as inexperienced and crass.