Happy Birthday George Will
George Will turned 65 today. For his birthday he gave us this wonderful article about the recently deceased John Kenneth Galbraith. Sometimes Mr. Will can only be described as a weenie, but because of his lifelong devotion to the Chicago Cubs I'll give him a break. In today's article Will commented on Galbraith's seminal book The Affluent Society:
If advertising really could manufacture consumer wants, few new products would fail. But many do. The Affluent Society, postulating the awesome power of manufacturers to create whatever demand they find it convenient to satisfy, was published nine months after Ford Motor Co. put its marketing muscle behind a new product, the Edsel.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Edsel; it was a very highly publicized flop. The term “Edsel” became synonymous with laughable failure for multiple generations. I was not even born when the Edsel was produced but we were all quite familiar with it.
If advertising really could manufacture consumer wants, few new products would fail. But many do. The Affluent Society, postulating the awesome power of manufacturers to create whatever demand they find it convenient to satisfy, was published nine months after Ford Motor Co. put its marketing muscle behind a new product, the Edsel.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Edsel; it was a very highly publicized flop. The term “Edsel” became synonymous with laughable failure for multiple generations. I was not even born when the Edsel was produced but we were all quite familiar with it.
posted by El Rider at 9:01 PM
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