Advertising could sell solutions to problems consumers did not know they had

Evidence

As consumerism grew, it also became possible to sell products solving problems that were hardly recognized as such, let alone matters of life and death. Demand was engineered by showing not so much that the product would solve the problem but that the problem existed at all. Bringing subconscious anxieties to the fore was the inspired brilliance behind the great campaigns for mouthwash and toothpaste, two products largely unknown before the 1920s. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 189

Categorization

• SEED: Core insight for an essay on manufactured problems — the modern template for selling products by first inventing the anxieties they address.
• DEEPTHINKING: A dense, paradigmatic statement of how demand is engineered by inventing the problem itself — underlies entire modern attention industries.
• XREF: 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 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Advertising manipulates consumers into wanting what they are made to want. #corroborates (0.90) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 258
• Informed consumers are more easily exploited by the market #corroborates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 126