Communication in a Commercial Culture

On the eve of the twenty­first century, America's marketplace of ideas has largely become a junkyard of commodity ideology. Each day of our lives, twelve billion display ads, two and one­half million radio commercials, and over three hundred thousand television commercials are dumped into the collective consciousness. ⁵⁴ Advertising consumes almost "sixty percent of newspaper space, 52 percent of magazine pages, 18 percent of radio time, [and] 17 percent of network television prime time." ⁵⁵ During a lifetime, most people will devote a full year and one­half to watching commercials. ⁵⁶ Product and service messages are plastered on everything from the painted sides of cows to food­dyed hot dogs, placed strategically in everything from books to movies, situated on everything from restaurant menus to the bottoms of holes on putting greens, pumped into everything from doctors' reception rooms to grade school classrooms, and zapped through everything from phones to fax machines. ⁵⁷ The Philip Morris Magazine­a slick and upscale periodical­boasted a circulation of more than twelve million, making it one of the largest circulation magazines in America. ⁵⁸ Over half of all American journalism and communications students forsake the fourth estate for careers in advertising. ⁵⁹ All this and more made possible by the some $130 billion dropped into advertising annually. ⁶⁰

The figures alone reveal the telling link between commerce and communication. But this is only the quantitative part of the story. Qualitatively, what can we say about commercial discourse? Ideally, "advertising is simply the distribution of information about products ... that enables consumers to make rational choices." ⁶¹ Ideally, it satisfies the high mission generally ascribed to commercial expression by economists. And ideally, its effects are confined to commercial transactions. Does the ideal, however, comport with reality?

Advertising mogul John O'Toole does not think so: "In reality, advertising is not about products but a person and his life ...." ⁶² Echoing O'Toole, advertising industry experts Al Ries and Jack Trout hold that advertising "concentrate[s] on the perceptions of the prospect. Not the reality of the product." ⁶³ They continue: "One prime objective of all advertising is to heighten expectations. To create the illusion that the product or service will perform the miracles you expect. And presto, that's exactly what the advertising does." ⁶⁴ Elaborating on this theme, advertising critic Linda Benn maintains: "Although advertisers ostensibly sell products, their true stock­in­trade is the image, which portrays ideals, values, and ways of life in the service of one thing: to get the consumer to buy, usually with appeals that have little connection to the product's intrinsic value." ⁶⁵