Life enrichment opportunity for all!

Who likes advertising? Check YouTube and there are heaps of post of videos of old 'classic' and new ads from telly past and current.




















Remember the Martians and their amazement at mashed potato? The 'secret lemonade drinker' ? Did you ever P-P-Pick up a Penguin?" "






















Having your mind and memory colonised by barkers pitches to buy this that and the other is all too common. One of my favourite bands of there and then - Snuff - even used them in their set. Their version of the 'Bran flakes' advert probably reinforced the product awareness, but almost certainly only encouraged people to buy their records and see them play. I think there's some irony going on there, subverting the media message or some such thing. All I know is I just have memories of yelling out the words, whilst bouncing around the music.

I came across a site with some old radio clips , from the late 50's and 60's. American radio, where the ad's are almost comical in their unique ham it up fashion. If you've listened to the 'The Firesign Theatre' group's records you'll see its already been cheesed up and used as comedy material for quite some time.

What prompted this blog?

I was just searching for something or other and came across this....

Informative Advertising with Differentiated Products, by Gene M. Grossman and Carl Shapiro © 1984 The Review of Economic Studies Ltd.

Abstract

In this paper we study the role of promotional expenditures by sellers in a model of product differentiation. Advertising conveys full and accurate information about the characteristics of products. Heterogeneous consumers, who have no source of information other than advertisements, seek to purchase the products that best fit their needs. Despite the roles played by advertising in improving the matching of products and consumers, and in increasing the elasticity of demand faced by each firm, we find that the market-determined levels of advertising are excessive, given the extent of diversity in the market. We derive a promotional equilibrium based on a specific information transmission technology, paying explicit attention to the structure of consumer information and its impact on firms' demand curves. This allows us to study the effects of changes in the advertising technology, including an increased ability to target messages to specific groups of consumers, on the equilibrium in the product market. We find that decreased advertising costs may reduce profits by increasing the severity of price competition.

I think they are serious....they certainly mean business!




....after reading that, I need some Firesign to bring me out of the maze...the adventures of Nick Danger!