The Case Against Advertising

Fairfax Cone

In this 1961 speech to the 4A's (the American Association of Advertising Agencies), Fairfax M Cone, of Foote, Cone & Belding, sets out - and attempts to clear up - some of the "misconceptions" which, he believes, make up the case against advertising, driven by recent U.S.

The Case Against Advertising

Fairfax Cone

The purpose here is to take up some of the perversions and to try to clear up some of the misconceptions that make up the case against advertising through vague authentication.

The case is stated again and again by the historian, Arthur Schlesinger, the economist (and now Ambassador to India) John Kenneth Galbraith and, for the general public, by Vance Packard; and anyone who has read any of them must be moved to apprehension and unease.

Oddly, none but educators, social scientists and professional critics, with competence established in other fields, could raise so...

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