What if we made advertising illegal? (opens in new tab)

Advertising can work. Reputable advertising firms track the numbers. You've always got correlation-causation problems, but there's too much data for it to be a coincidence.

There are two problems:

1. Even for reputable firms, they don't know beforehand what works. As the famous quote goes, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” That was over a century ago, but it's still true.

2. There are a lot of disreputable advertisers. So many that you can easily miss that any sincere advertising exists. And even the reputable advertisers are forced to use tactics that they wouldn't use in an environment with less noise.

Banning all advertising is a baby/bathwater situation. I promise you that there is a baby in there, and you'd notice if we threw out that ocean-sized bathtub. And then you'd want to build up a new advertising mode... and you'd find it a challenge to do in a way that is simultaneously effective and fair.

That works if you're advertising something people knew they wanted beforehand. It doesn't work if you're offering something novel.

If they're looking up plumbers in the yellow pages, you won't encounter the existence of Drano.