The effectiveness of advertising depends on the amount and kind of product information available to consumers... advertising will be more successful the more impoverished the consumer's information environment.
Michael SchudsonIt is very likely that many firms spend more on advertising than, for their own best interests, they should.
Michael SchudsonDifferent groups are differentially vulnerable to advertising; and their vulnerability varies not so much with the character or quantity of advertisements as with the informational resources they can claim by age, education, station in life, and government guarantees of consumer protection.
Michael SchudsonMost criticism of advertising is written in ignorance of what actually happens inside these agencies.
Michael SchudsonEven if, as is generally the case, everything that the ad says about the product is scrupulously honest, or at any rate scrupulously avoids outright dishonesty, the implication of the direct address of most commercials - that the announcer speaks with the viewer's welfare at heart - is fraudulent.
Michael Schudson