Advertising’s power to create demand is contested partly by definition

Evidence

Some economists contest the idea that demand can be created by advertising, despite the empirical evidence. Whether “wants” can be created may just depend on how you define them. One might be said to be born wanting “beautiful things,” and advertising merely identifies for you what is beautiful. Or one can more easily say that advertising shapes or creates demand. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 284

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘born wanting beautiful things’ framing recalls Thorstein Veblen on emulation and later Galbraith’s dependency effect on manufactured wants. — connects to: Advertising budgets, not product merit, determine what consumers buy — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 175; Advertising’s stated purpose was to manufacture needs, not merely inform — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 468; Advertising manipulates consumers into wanting what they are made to want. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 258 (+4 more)
• SEED: Angle: the definitional loophole that lets economists deny advertising creates demand while conceding it shapes it — a semantic game with regulatory stakes.

Broader Connections

• Advertising compels consumers to identify with and demand the products imposed on them #expands (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 98
• Modern advertising manipulates desires through images largely unconnected to the product. #exemplifies (0.80) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1819
• Marketing works by making consumers feel immune to it while they buy in #exemplifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 393