Adeus Ads
Thursday, 21 June 2007 by Joscelynn TomawThe city of Såo Paulo has banned advertising. In a market-share game, this is supposedly the best of all possible worlds! The game looks like this, with the fractions representing the portion of the market that each firm gets under the über simplifying assumption that there are only two firms:
Under normal circumstances, both firms will advertise, each maintaining its share of the market by continually one-upping the other in spending on advertising; but when that option is removed, each firm retains its portion of the market because all are equally unable to advertise and all firms save money by not paying for advertising. Double bonus!
But what if you’re not in a market-share game? What if, rather than trying to take a larger slice of pie, you’re just trying to make a pie? And what if you have a slice of advertising pie? What then?
It is hardly a stretch of the imagination to see that the supposed aesthetic benefit (take a look) is unlikely to outweigh the stifling effects of the ban.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:12
How can you not see the art behind the lack of advertising?