Re: Financing of media. <kl811af@sunmail.lrz-muenchen.de>

["Alan G. Isaac" <AISAAC@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't think that anyone with children can deny that advertising can
generate desires in them. So perhaps a question is: how much are
adults like children? I generally prefer to formulate policy on the
assumption that people "grow up", even though this is obviously a
simplifying assumption.  --Alan G. Isaac

On Wed, 27 Jul 1994 17:10:36 -0600 <kl811af@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:
>
>
>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