Advertising

"Are Americans more vulnerable to advertisements, and perhaps less skeptical about them, than, say, Europeans?" TomPaine.com's Sharon Basco asked Jean Kilbourne, author of Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel. "The only reason that Americans might be more vulnerable than people from other countries is that we believe we're not vulnerable," Kilbourne said. "There's such a widespread belief in America that we're not influenced by anything really, that you know, we're not culturally conditioned.

"Following a disastrous 2002 for the public relations industry, the war in Iraq now threatens to blight 2003," Advertising Age writes. "The most immediate problem for PR agencies is the shrinking news hole -- a vital element of campaigns -- now that it appears the war will go on for longer than some expected." Bad news for PR, but advertisers need not worry. "A majority of U.S.

"Just as the advertising industry picks up the pieces from a crushing slump, the drumbeat of war is threatening to spoil the recovery," write Merissa Marr and Adam Pasick. "Advertisers are nervously reviewing their campaigns as a U.S.-led conflict in Iraq looms ... reporting a reluctance among some marketers to spend money on new campaigns and launch new products. ... In the last Gulf war in 1991, advertising spending almost entirely dried up for two months.

"A leading television producer and two major advertisers
have joined forces to present a live variety show with no
commercial interruptions. Instead, the advertising messages
will be incorporated into the show. The advertisers, which so far include Pepsi and Nokia
phones, are buying six hours of air time to create what the
program's producer, Michael Davies, called 'a contemporary,
hip Ed Sullivan show' for the youth-oriented WB Network,
part of AOL Time Warner. ... Although the network