Is advertising speech?

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by Bill3000


"whatever percieved dangers" and whatnot. Meh, my point of that post was on nonverified "herbal supplements."

Oh, I agree with that point. Most of that trash often cause problems in people then actually help them.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ming
A typical response... good for you... "some" people here think advertising can make people do all kinds of things they don't want...

Isn't that the whole idea? Compulsive buying?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by VJ
Uhh no, it's pretty universal. Free speech means free speech, not "free speech but only when you're talking about politics". Making up doublespeak.

"Speech" is not the same as the universal set of all valid sentences you can make from a particular grammar.

"Speech" has a context and a content.

[DaShi]

So if you know the answer, why the thread?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger




"Speech" is not the same as the universal set of all valid sentences you can make from a particular grammar.

"Speech" has a context and a content.

And who gets to decide what is allowed and what is not?

[Berzerker]

I don't think advertising is speech. Speech is a statement of your position on a particular issue. Advertising serves no such purpose*. So that's not covered by speech.

Advertising does serve a purpose, it gives us information about products we may want. I happen to think thats more important than some left winger telling us we have no freedom to ask for or receive that information Btw, since when does speech need to have a political purpose to be speech?

Besides, if advertising is speech, there wouldn't be such a thing as false advertising.

Why?

[Lefty Scaevola]

Certainly it is speech, what proctection it should is an entirely different question.

[-Jrabbit]

Amusing discussion. As for the legality, Felch's post above is correct.

Like Ming, I'm a long-time ad industry guy (he's agency-side, I'm client-side). The advertisement of new drugs is disturbing to me, for two reasons.

1) It encourages the pill-popping culture and thus increases number of doctor visits, number of prescriptions written. In the end, my health insurance costs go up.

2) The advertisement of products like Viagra and Cialis during times when kids are watching is, as a parent, inappropriate IMHO. It just feels wrong to have erectile "dysfunction" be fair game to advertise to a national audience...

I'm amazed at how many people are undaunted by the required side effects listing. "This purple pill will put you in a good mood. Oh BTW, may cause liver failure, migraines, high blood pressure, and your toes could fall off. But you'll be in a good mood!"

I understand that this sort of drug marketing is a function of things like stock prices and a need to amortize development costs as quickly as possibly, esp. before competitive products hit the markets. But the bottom line is that the drug companies are not just trying to reach the afflicted. In many cases, they are trying to expand the market for a drug by convincing people to ask for them. Knowing full well that many doctors (who have received an even more intensive B2B marketing campaign) would just as soon prescribe than to argue with their patients.

Bottom line: The drug companies have too much marketing money at their disposal.

[Aabraxan]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


"Speech" is not the same as the universal set of all valid sentences you can make from a particular grammar.

"Speech" has a context and a content.

Exactly. And as Lefty Scaevola noted, the question of I]whether[/I] advertising is speech is entirely different from the question of what legal protections advertising should get, and also separate from the question of whether or not, for example, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, or lawyers should advertise, in the sense of whether it's good for the public at large to allow such advertising. Free speech isn't really absolute. It's a question of how much freedom a particular type of speech gets. That's why we have the false advertising, slander, fighting words, etc., doctrines. There's also the question of whether the regulation at issue is a regulation of the form of the advertising, or its content. The two get tangled up a lot.