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Is the Public Just 'A Collection of Dolts'?
I suppose I should be grateful to Virginia Postrel for even trying to summarize my views ("The Pleasures of Persuasion," editorial page, Aug. 2). But in Ms. Postrel's recounting of the saga of postwar advertising, some key points were left out. Whenever discussing the advertising industry's attitude toward the public, it is crucial to remember that admen of that era would say different things at different times. When writing for a general audience, they nearly always proclaimed their respect for the intelligence of general audiences. When writing one another, they were equally given to referring to the public as a collection of dolts.
The conclusion I draw from all this smart-audience stuff is not that the public are dopes but that this notion of public intelligence is in fact an empty slogan used mainly by demagogues to counter any criticism of the market. Like mine, for example. Advertising people tend to be their own best critics, as well as profoundly skeptical of the promises of the unrestrained free market. And if they can criticize it, why can't I?
Thomas Frank Editor The Baffler Chicago
as written ----------
I suppose I should be grateful to Virginia Postrel for even trying to summarize my views for the readers of the Wall Street Journal. ("The Pleasures of Persuasion," August 2) Even though we live in a world of intelligent readers and infinite choice, I somehow doubt those readers will ever get to see my name in the byline of the "Manager's Journal" column. And I suppose we should all be grateful that there are people like Postrel out there, willing to pose themselves so boldly on the ramparts of public self-image, ready to do battle against any impugner of the popular mind.
But in Postrel's recounting of the saga of postwar advertising, I'm afraid some key points were left out. Whenever discussing the advertising industry's attitude toward the public, for example, it is crucial to remember that admen of that era would say different things at different times. When writing for a general audience, for example, they nearly always tended to proclaim, as in the quotes Ms. Postrel has dug up from David Ogilvy, their respect for the intelligence of general audiences. When writing for one another, as in the quotes dug up long ago by Vance Packard, they were equally given to referring to the public as a collection of dolts little better than farm animals. To find Vance Packard guilty of "the worst sort of technocratic elitism," as Postrel does, simply for reporting on the technocratic elitism of the advertising industry, strikes me as exceeding strange, if not a little unfair. It no doubt makes intelligent readers wonder what sort of manipulative trickery she's up to.
A clue can be found in the way Packard was interpreted in his own day. While the Postrels of 1957 berated the man for all manner of journalistic and political lapses, intelligent readers found that his critique rang true. Before long, the advertising industry itself was in revolution, running ads that actually spoke to the fears and the anger that Packard's book had so effectively crystallized. So when admen in the Sixties talked about intelligent audiences, they nearly always meant skeptical audiences, people who had read Vance Packard. In fact, the history of advertising in the 1960s can be understood as one long riff on this notion of public intelligence: The public may be smart, but the adman is smarter, and he's gone and tricked everyone--except for you, dear reader, the one person who's even smarter than him!
Unfortunately, the confusion gets worse once Ms. Postrel quotes from my writing on the subject. The conclusion I draw from all this smart-audience stuff is not that the public are dopes (or, as her article curiously implies, that leftist cultural critics should treat them as such), but that this notion of public intelligence is in fact an empty slogan used mainly by demagogues and ideologues--ideologues like Ms. Postrel, for example--to counter any and all criticism of the market. Like mine, for example.
After realizing that Ms. Postrel's essay was not going to debunk those decades of demagoguery but extend them just a little bit more, intelligent readers no doubt breathed heavy sighs of despair. For they, like me, must have been wishing that Ms. Postrel had spent a little more time contemplating that greatest of American advertising fables, that of the frogs and the lizards.
As we all know, for a time the admen charged with burnishing the Budweiser brand chose to glorify it by having three frogs sing out the golden syllables of the company's name. Intelligent viewers were briefly amused. Postrel's take on this is that the frogs may have been "silly" but Americans "accept" them anyway, and since we've already agreed Americans are intelligent, they must have enjoyed those frogs in sound mind and body. Ergo, no one has any right to criticize those frogs or their inventors: Budweiser advertising, like the free market, is as pure an expression of the popular will as was the presidency of Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"But, oh, Virginia," intelligent readers no doubt cried, "What of the lizards?"
Yes, the lizards. Sure, we the people were amused by the frogs, but before long--and being intelligent consumers, naturally--we recognized them to be the dopey bit of froth that they in fact were. So Budweiser brought out the lizards: Scheming, resentful, bitter lizards who looked out on this dopey tableau of mesmerized amphibians mouthing senseless brand names and swore to bring it all crashing down.
The point being, Ms. Postrel, that advertising people tend to be their own best critics, as well as profoundly skeptical of the promises of the unrestrained free market. And if they can criticize it, why can't I?