Marketing Madness: A Survival Guide for a Consumer Society

by Michael F. Jacobson and Laurie Ann Mazur

Book Overview

In 1983, Reese's Pieces made their debut on the silver screen, gobbled up by that lovable alien ET, and sales of the candy shot up instantly by 66 percent. Reebok has sponsored the U.S. Olympic team--and the Russian team, as well The British Boy Scouts sell space on their merit badges to advertisers.Michael Jacobson, founder of the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, Center for the Study of Commercialism (CSC), and Laurie Ann Mazur have produced...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813319811
• ISBN13: 9780813319810
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

A Maddening Perspective

MARKETING MADNESS, the predecessor of Naomi Klein's more recent NO LOGO, is an easy-to-read, entertaining and well-chronicled testament to the growing misinformation and miscommunication about and surrounding human values. The authors decry those marketing and advertising strategies and techniques that attempt to imbed human value systems into the merchandising and selling of products in increasingly ingenuous ways. While it is certainly a sociopolitical manifesto against hyper-commercialism, MARKETING MADNESS unfortunately demonstrates that these strategies and techniques target their intended audiences all too successfully. Yet, without this book, we might have remained only subconsiously aware or completely unconscious of the tremendous power of consumer narcissism seen through the eyes of global corporatism and one of its most visible representatives. This is a must-read for all marketing, advertising, public relations and mass communications undergrad and graduate students as well as current practitioners in these fields. Perhaps it will help all think twice about the effect that their individual choices have on the world around them.

Outstanding!

This book is extremely readable and informative. It is a true eye-opener for anyone who is not already a professional in the advertising or marketing fields. I think it will help me to shield myself from the assault that really does exist but to which I was previously blind -- the assault by people intent on getting me (and you) to reach into my pocket or my bank account, take out some money, and give it to them. A great read!