AIG

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by TGRR

Good way? There is no "good way" in advertising under capitalism. There is "successful" and "unsuccessful". If that is unacceptable, you'll have to find a new system.

Advertising is the bane of an enlightened society.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

It's about something I posted earlier. You have to go back and read the post.

Are you talking about it in general or something specific?

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Advertising is the bane of an enlightened society.

Bullshit.

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Advertising is the bane of an enlightened society.

Good thing I don't live in Tibet, then.

TGRR,
Would not have known to avoid "The Angry Whopper", had he not seen the commercial.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by lookout123

...R&D is subsidized through grants and the like but the companies spend far more in drug trials and development. They are private corporations who pay their employees to do a job. Instead of despising their profit, you should applaud it...

Check out these links to learn how pharmaceutical companies really work and how they are screwing us.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244
"...Third, the industry is hardly a model of American free enterprise. To be sure, it is free to decide which drugs to develop (me-too drugs instead of innovative ones, for instance), and it is free to price them as high as the traffic will bear, but it is utterly dependent on government-granted monopolies—in the form of patents and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved exclusive marketing rights. If it is not particularly innovative in discovering new drugs, it is highly innovative—and aggressive—in dreaming up ways to extend its monopoly rights..."
"...Drug industry expenditures for research and development, while large, were consistently far less than profits. For the top ten companies, they amounted to only 11 percent of sales in 1990, rising slightly to 14 percent in 2000. The biggest single item in the budget is neither R&D nor even profits but something usually called "marketing and administration"—a name that varies slightly from company to company. In 1990, a staggering 36 percent of sales revenues went into this category, and that proportion remained about the same for over a decade.[13] Note that this is two and a half times the expenditures for R&D.

These figures are drawn from the industry's own annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and to stockholders, but what actually goes into these categories is not at all clear, because drug companies hold that information very close to their chests. It is likely, for instance, that R&D includes many activities most people would consider marketing, but no one can know for sure. For its part, "marketing and administration" is a gigantic black box that probably includes what the industry calls "education," as well as advertising and promotion, legal costs, and executive salaries—which are whopping. According to a report by the non-profit group Families USA, the for-mer chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Charles A. Heimbold Jr., made $74,890,918 in 2001, not counting his $76,095,611 worth of unexercised stock options. The chairman of Wyeth made $40,521,011, exclusive of his $40,629,459 in stock options. And so on..."
"...This is an industry that in some ways is like the Wizard of Oz—still full of bluster but now being exposed as something far different from its image. Instead of being an engine of innovation, it is a vast marketing machine. Instead of being a free market success story, it lives off government-funded research and monopoly rights. Yet this industry occupies an essential role in the American health care system, and it performs a valuable function, if not in discovering important new drugs at least in developing them and bringing them to market. But big pharma is extravagantly rewarded for its relatively modest functions. We get nowhere near our money's worth. The United States can no longer afford it in its present form..."

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2001/july/n..._debunks_d.php
"...¤ The actual after-tax cash outlay - or what drug companies really spend on R&D - for each new drug (including failures) according to the DiMasi study is approximately $108 million. (That's in year 2000 dollars, based on data provided by drug companies.) [See Section I]

¤ A simpler measure - also derived from data provided by the industry - suggests that after-tax R&D costs ranged from $69 million to $87 million for each new drug created in the 1990s, including failures. [See Section II]

¤ Industry R&D costs are reduced by taxpayer-funded research, which has helped launch the most medically important drugs in recent years and many of the best-selling drugs, including all of the top five sellers in one recent year.

¤ An internal National Institutes of Health (NIH) document, obtained by Public Citizen through the Freedom of Information Act, shows how crucial taxpayer-funded research is to top-selling drugs. According to the NIH, taxpayer-funded scientists or foreign universities conducted 85 percent of the research projects that led to the discovery and development of the top five selling drugs in 1995. [See Section III]..."

http://survivreausida.net/a4915-rx-r...drug-indu.html
"...Public Citizen based the study on an extensive review of government and industry data and a report obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Among the report’s key findings :

* The actual after-tax cash outlay - what drug companies really spend on R&D for each new drug (including failures) - is approximately $110 million (in year 2000 dollars.) This is in marked contrast with the $500 million figure PhRMA frequently touts.
* The NIH document shows how crucial taxpayer-funded research is to the development of top-selling drugs. According to the NIH, U.S. taxpayer-funded scientists conducted at least 55 percent of the research projects that led to the discovery and development of the five top-selling drugs in 1995.
* Public Citizen found that, at most, about 22 percent of the new drugs brought to market in the past two decades were innovative drugs that represented important therapeutic advances. Most new drugs were "me-too" or copycat drugs that have little or no therapeutic gain over existing drugs, undercutting the industry’s claim that R&D expenses are used to discover new treatments for serious and life-threatening illnesses.

A second report issued today by Public Citizen, The Other Drug War : Big Pharma’s 625 Washington Lobbyists, examines how the U.S. drug industry spent an unprecedented $262 million on political influence in the 1999-2000 election cycle. That includes $177 million on lobbying, $65 million on issue ads and $20 million on campaign contributions. The report shows that :

* The drug industry hired 625 different lobbyists last year — or more than one lobbyist for every member of Congress — to coax, cajole and coerce lawmakers. The one-year bill for this team of lobbyists was $92.3 million, a $7.2 million increase over what the industry spent for lobbyists in 1999..."
"...The drug industry is stealing from us twice," Clemente said. "First it claims that it needs huge profits to develop new drugs, even while drug companies get hefty taxpayer subsidies. Second, the companies gouge taxpayers while spending millions from their profits to buy access to lawmakers and defeat pro-consumer prescription drug legislation..."

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by classicman

Bullshit.

It's my opinion. We are bombarded every second of every day with advertisements for things we don't need. People have too much stuff. And if you don't have the very latest stuff, then you won't be happy and you certainly won't be cool. We are being brainwashed into thinking stuff will make us happy (well, some of us anyway. The rest of us are asleep when it comes to this particular topic). It's part of the reason why we're in such a mess now financially, and why the world is toxic. (Do you even know how many toxic chemicals go into the creation of cell phones and computers and other electronics? And people go through them like candy. Do you know how many tons of waste are created just to make one ton of stuff? Do you realize the implications of that?) And advertising, since it makes people yearn and want things, also creates envy and greed. Do you see the implications of that? I see it everywhere. Even as aware as I am of the problem, I am not immune to it.

No, advertising is definitely the herion of the masses. umhuh.

[Shawnee123]

None of us are immune. I have a computer, television...but I don't buy into the "I must have everything" mantra. I used to be a rabid consumerist, then I realized most of the stuff doesn't matter, in the long run.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Kimberly-Clark spent $25,000,000, in its third quarter, on advertising to persuade Americans against trusting their bottoms to cheaper brands of toilet paper.

[Shawnee123]

The Dollar Store rocks!

I only buy the stuff with more actual paper to each roll.

[DanaC]

Advertising is just a method of informing the public of your product and trying to generate desire/demand. No different to shouting from a market stall.

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

It's my opinion. We are bombarded every second of every day with advertisements for things we don't need. People have too much stuff.

That's absolutely true. However, the stupidity of the howling mob we call "the bulk of the human race" is no reason to deny the right to advertise a product.

Caveat emptor, and all that good stuff. Or caveat dumbassicus.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

No, advertising is definitely the herion of the masses. umhuh.

No, advertising is the pusher, for the opiates that are the religion of the masses (to twist a phrase).

[classicman]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Advertising is just a method of informing the public of your product and trying to generate desire/demand.

Thanks Dana for the one rational unemotionally charged post in all of this.

I wonder how we would know about the newest, most updated and perhaps SAFER environmentally friendly products around if we didn't have advertising. Perhaps we could all just watch and wait for FOX or MSNBC to tell us. Yeh, I'm sure Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow &/or Bill O'Reilly are really looking out for anyone other than themselves or their agenda.

[sugarpop]

I didn't say we shouldn't have any advertising, I said I thought the industry should be reformed. And I stand by that.

Advertising is responsible for creating a nation of self-absorbed, insecure, seriously fucked up people who can't think for themselves. You really should read Adbusters sometime. Go to Barnes and Noble and sit and read one. It's a great magazine.

[classicman]

Advertising is NOT responsible at all. If you are too stupid to know what you need or don't need thats on YOU, not the advertising industry.

Originally Posted by DanaC

Advertising is just a method of informing the public of your product and trying to generate desire/demand. No different to shouting from a market stall.

i would suggest the intent of most advertising, from packaging/labeling to tv/print media, is to sell.

The role of government regulation of some advertising is to more fully inform the consumer.

Caveat emptor is fine and dandy, but not always possible.

If I want "all natural" beef, with no antibiotics or chemicals, government labeling (advertising) regulations provide a level of assurance beyond the manufacturer's word.

If I am considering medication, the regulatory requirement to list possible side effects (not only on the product, but in ads) provides additional information that the manufacturer might not otherwise make available.

[tw]

I was raised on advertising. Before the age of ten, I even recruited friends for TV commercials. One was featured on nationwide TV.

My father quit advertising when the FTC stepped in. They had to start telling the truth. It took all the fun out of it. Well, he was exaggerating. They simply had to not lie so blatantly.

Advertising is also what Limbaugh does. Because so many have opinions without first learning facts, then many (ie the most religious) will deny when facts and numbers finally arrive. That is Limbaugh's job. Tell the most naive how to think first. When reality appears, these most extremists will aggressively deny - even attack the messenger.

Need an example? See how ozone layer destruction was denied for so long. See discussions here in 2002 about Saddam's WMDs. Or see the few here some years ago who avvidly claimed Chevy is a good car even after facts and numbers said otherwise.

Why do many here use fluoride toothpaste? Or believe Pepto-Bismol’s pink coating relieves intestinal problems? I personally watched it all happen as a kid.

Childhood leukemia is traceable to electric power lines? Vitamin C averts common colds? Power strip protectors protect computers? All myths widely believed only because it was the first thing they were told. That is what advertising is all about. Get you to believe cigarette smoking is good for your health - so that many would later deny the Surgeon General's report. Advertising works because so many - a majority - believe the first thing they are told; don't first demand numbers and facts.

I was raised watching this happen – which is why I so often am a minority opposed to popular beliefs: ie Saddam’s WMDs, GM products, what MBAs do, the murder of seven Challenger and seven Columbia astronauts, etc.