Grumpy Brit reminds us that an overzealous focus on efficiency is not the best approach for mass marketers.
The most common complaint against “traditional” advertising is the waste factor. According to the precision-guided-missile school of marketing, any message that reaches anyone who is not an immediate prospect for purchasing the product is wasted. And these people call themselves capitalists.
The reason western economies are so prosperous is because everyone buys stuff they can’t use and don’t need. Everyone knows it, everyone’s complicit in the conceit, it’s the way we live. And if it weren’t, we’d have an economy more like Canada’s when the Hudson’s Bay Trading Company opened for business in 1670.
The man has a point. Although, I might add that environmental conditions in the 17th century were utterly pristine.
