Re: Financing of media.

[kl811af@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Tue, 26 Jul 1994, Herbert Gintis wrote:

> 	E.g., Coke and MacDonalds advertize like crazy, but people want
> their products without the advertizing (fast food). That's why they
> have no trouble expanding into new markets around the world.

Do you have any scientific evidence for this contention and the more
general one, that advertizing doesn't change preferences? I would rather
guess that that's part of some (sorry:) neoclassical creed.

I have some *anecdotical* evidence to the contrary: When my nephew
first came to Nuernberg his greatest desire was to go to McDonalds. He
actually knew exactly what he wanted to eat there. Not of course, because
he wanted to eat this stuff anyway, but because he was very impressed by TV
commercials which were directly addressed to children.

More generally: What we observe is much advertizing by McDonalds and it's
worldwide success. The natural suspicion would be that the one has to do
with the other. Who claims otherwise should deliver extremely
compelling evidence.

Andreas Goesele
Institut fuer Gesellschaftspolitik
Kaulbachstr. 31a
D-80539 Muenchen