Mad Men-era advertising allowed consumers a fighting chance that algorithm-driven persuasion does not.

Evidence

Advertising, moreover, is no longer built around the idea of informing or promoting in the ordinary sense, but is increasingly geared to manipulating desires and tastes through images that may or may not have anything to do with the product to be sold (see plate 1 .6). If we stripped modern advertising of direct reference to the three themes of money, sex, and power there would be very little left. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1819 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Algorithmic persuasion is two-way and recursive where broadcast advertising was one-way. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 271; Modern advertising manipulates desires through images largely unconnected to the product. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1819; 1960s advertising made a turn from fear-based to love-based persuasion — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 587

Related

• Modern advertising manipulates desires through images largely unconnected to the product. (similarity 0.88)
• Advertising expands choices while propaganda obliterates them (similarity 0.83)
• Post-war advertising shifted from selling products to manufacturing and commodifying desire. (similarity 0.82)
• 1960s advertising made a turn from fear-based to love-based persuasion (similarity 0.80)
• Advertising manipulates consumer fears by 1926, as Time magazine observed. (similarity 0.80)
• Advertising manipulates consumers into wanting what they are made to want. (similarity 0.80)
• Early twentieth-century advertising moved from persuasion to brand loyalty and conversion (similarity 0.78)
• Algorithmic persuasion outmatches human advertising because it is systemic (similarity 0.78)
• Advertising’s power to create demand is contested partly by definition (similarity 0.78)
• Algorithmic persuasion is two-way and recursive where broadcast advertising was one-way. (similarity 0.78)
• Advertising shifted from promising cures to selling consumers a better version of themselves (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Modern advertising manipulates desires through images largely unconnected to the product. #expands (0.80) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1819