"Advertisers, not governments, are the primary censors of media content in the United States today." C. Edwin Baker "When a man throws an empty cigarette package from an automobile, he is liable to a fine of $50. When a man throws a billboard across a view, he is richly rewarded." Pat Brown (former Governor of California) "It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing. There is more than one way to conquer a country." Raymond Chandler "Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero." F. Scott Fitzgerald "Advertising has done more to cause the social unrest of the 20th century than any other single factor." Clare Boothe Luce "Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance." Marshall McLuhan "I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Indeed, unless the billboards fall I'll never see a tree at all." Ogden Nash "Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket." George Orwell Young people are "threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire." Pope John Paul II "Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better." George Santayana "Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising." Mark Twain "Advertising is legalized lying." H.G. Wells "Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams - Joseph interpreting for Pharoah. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword." E.G. White I can not "think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil." Arnold Toynbee

"No God -- No Peace. Know God -- Know Peace." "Free Trip to heaven. Details Inside!" "Try our Sundays. They're better than Baskin-Robbins." "Searching for a new look? Have your faith lifted here!" An ad for a church has a picture of two hands holding stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments are inscribed and a headline that reads, "For fast, fast, fast relief, take two tablets." "Have trouble sleeping? We have sermons -- come hear one!" "People are like tea bags -- you have to put them in hot water before you know how strong they are." "God so loved the world that He did NOT send a committee." "Come in and pray today. Beat the Christmas rush!" "When down in the mouth, remember Jonah. He came out all right." "Sign broken. Message inside this Sunday." "Come work for the Lord. The work is hard, the hours are long and the pay is low. But the retirement benefits are out of this world." ""If you're headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns." "This is a ch_ _ ch. What is missing?" ---------> (U R)

MIRABILE DICTU! - (Latin for "Signs and portents!") * Veterinary office: "All unattended children given free kitten." * On a Plumbers truck: "We repair what your husband fixed." * At a tire shop in Milwaukee: "Invite us to your next blowout." * Door of a plastic surgeons office: "Can we pick your nose?" * Billboard on the side of the road: "Keep your eyes on the road and stop reading these signs." * On an Electricians truck: "Let us remove your shorts." * In a Nonsmoking Area: "If we see you smoking we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action." * On Maternity Room Door: "Push, Push, Push." * At an Optometrists Office "If you don't see what you're looking for you've come to the right place." * In a Podiatrist's office: "Time wounds all heels." * On a fence: "Salesmen Welcome. Dog food is expensive." * Outside a Muffler Shop: "No appointment necessary. We'll hear you coming." * In a Veterinarians waiting room: "Be back in 5 minutes, Sit! Stay!" * In the front yard of a funeral home: "Drive carefully, we'll wait."

We probably like to think that we're too smart to be seduced by such "branding," but we aren't. If you ask test participants in a study to explain their preferences in music or art, they'll come up with some account based on the qualities of the pieces themselves. Yet several studies have demonstrated that "familiarity breeds liking." If you play snippets of music for people or show them slides of paintings and vary the number of times they hear or see the music and the art, on the whole people will rate the familiar things more positively than the unfamiliar ones. The people doing the ratings don't know that they like one bit of music more than another <i>because</i> it's more familiar. Nonetheless, when products are essentially equivalent, people go with what's familiar, even if it's only familiar because they know its name from advertising.

Ouch

Advertising is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.