I see. People didn't _really_ want SUVs. They were simply brainwashed into this by advertising. (SUVs were in this respect different -- or not? from other new products. Cellphones. CD players. Computers. . . . )
As I say, there is no way, short of doing more research than I care to do here, and even thatw ould probably not satisfy you, of resolving the question of whether advertising is effective at making people want or velieve things regardless of their experiences.
But I once again note that the assumption that most people are pliable fools who do not know their wants or interests is a very common one among the educated upper middle classes. It accounts for a lot of the appeal of both Fabian-style social democracy and old-style Bolshevism. jks
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> John Thornton wrote:
>
> >Odd that you should choose the auto industry. You
> must have missed
> >out on the SUV craze. A demand created almost
> wholly from the
> >desires of the auto industry.
>
> Speaking of which, later this afternoon I'll be
> posting the radio
> show that includes my interview with Keith Bradsher,
> author of High
> And Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV. He talks
> a lot about how
> Detroit marketers played to the personality types of
> the likely
> buyers. (Show also includes Michael Mann on his new
> Verso book,
> Incoherent Empire.)
>
> Doug
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