Advertising: We Are The Real Product

A quote from the book Deadly Persuasion:

"The primary purpose of the mass media is to sell audiences to advertisers...

We are the product...

Magazines, newspapers, and radio and television programs round us up, rather like cattle, and producers and publishers then sell us to advertisers, usually through ads placed in advertising and industry publications...

Although we like to think of advertising as unimportant, it is in fact the most important aspect of the mass media.

It IS the point.

Advertising supports more than 60 percent of magazine and newspaper production and almost 100 percent of the electronic media... television and radio programs are simply fillers for the space between commercials...

Through focus groups and depth interviews, psychological researchers can zero in on very specific target audiences...

"Buy this 24-year-old and get all his friends absolutely free," proclaims an ad for MTV directed to advertisers.

MTV presents itself publicly as a place for rebels and nonconformists.
Behind the scenes, however, it tells potential advertisers that its viewers are lemmings who will buy whatever they are told to buy.

In the eyes of the media, the youths of the world are becoming a single,
seamless, soulless target audience..."

This quote is from "Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising" by Jean Kilbourne, 1999.