The essential role of communications

Debating paper against the position of Andrew Ehrenberg. The author still supports his contention that advertising is a `weak force' (1990) but believes it incomplete in one important respect: advertising may generate a strong short-term effect which is evanescent and usually dissipated.

The essential role of communications

John Philip Jones

 

ADVERTISING: STRONG OR WEAK FORCE? TWO VIEWS AN OCEAN APART

In the article with this title, which appeared for the first time in 1990, I argued that effective advertising can far more often be explained as operating as a weak force (by soft-selling/seducing/working with the grain of consumer attitudes), than as a strong force (by hard-selling/wearing down resistance/ converting apathetic or hostile consumers). The essential role of communications still endorse this doctrine, although I believe it to be incomplete in one important respect. It ignores the possibility that advertising is capable...

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