Abstract
A GOOD general dictionary tells you that advertising simply means making a thing widely known by circular, etc., but a scrupulously careful scientific handbook tells you that advertising means "the process of notifying or persuading people without personal solicitation" (italics ours). The difference between the two statements makes all the difference—notifying, yes, by all means; persuading, a much more hesitant yes. The kind of thing that bothers most people about advertising is the patent-medicine advertisement that blurs the distinction between palliatives and cures, the advertisement for pills that vulgarly disfigures a lovely landscape, the window-dressing that induces people to buy what they do not need and cannot afford. Evidently advertising touches psychology, ethics and æsthetics as well as economics. Of all this the author of this fine book is perfectly well aware. He promises to deal later on with "the various ethical and social problems raised by the practice of commercial advertising". In this volume he adheres to his purpose as indicated in the title. The book is packed with information and suggestions coming from one who is obviously master of his subject, who has lived it as well as studied it, and who helps the reader to form a judgment as to the immediate future of advertising.
The Economics of Advertising
F. P.
Bishop
By. Pp. 200. (London:Robert Hale, Ltd., 1944.) 7s. 6d. net.
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The Economics of Advertising. Nature 156, 765 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156765b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156765b0