There are people who categorically reject the notion that supply can create demand. I have one friend who is so heavily invested in the notion that it can't happen that he actually gets angry and will threaten to end friendships with anyone who insists on arguing the point.
Those whose object do so partly a matter of political economics. If supply can really create demand then Keynes and Marx were just wrong, end of story. And that would upset a lot of apple carts. But it's pretty obvious that there is a deeper problem and that it is a moral issue. People reject the notion because it upsets their understanding of what a human being should be. They want human beings to be primarily concerned with "real needs" and not subject to passing fashion. Consider, for instance, the person who gets really angry at the thought that a whole lot of people can suddenly have a craving for a product they didn't know existed until it appeared in advertising.
Note that the concern here is not lying. That goes on, of course. I had a gas vendor show up at my door last week and tried to convince me that he was a consumer advocate working to protect my interest. He really was trying to con me into renting a water heater from his company. That is a concern but it's not what upsets people here—what upsets them is the notion that advertising can create a need in me for something that I never needed before. That supply could create demand.
And to argue against such people, the important first step is to acknowledge that advertising can do just that and then consider why that might be a problem. Do they think that advertisers have secret psychological techniques that they can use to manipulate us into wanting things we don't really want? (That was what troubled Marx.) I'm perfectly willing to admit I didn't want some products until I saw them advertised but does that make my want for them false?
One of the important things to show them is that it doesn't have to be advertising to work. Pinaud's Clubman aftershave has been made since 1810 and is not advertised anywhere where I live. It's dirt cheap and is not making large amounts of money for anyone. There is far more money and advertising spent trying to create a need for the latest designer and celebrity scents and all without much success. And yet, the second I learned about Clubman from researching the history of shaving, I wanted some. I didn't just want to try it. I was predisposed to like it. And when I tried it I did like it.
But not any supply can create demand. Huge amounts of sulphur are created as a byproduct of industrial processes but nowhere is there much demand for sulphur. It's not that sulphur is useless. Human excrement also has some uses but we still pay to have it taken away. There simply isn't much demand for these things.
But there are other times when simply supplying something can create a huge demand for it. It can even happen largely by accident. One fascinating case is the ASCAP battle with radio stations that built up over the 1930s finally coming to a head at the end of the decade. It's often conflated with the musician's union battle with radio stations over recorded music but it was something else entirely.
One of the reasons it gets less attention is because it had virtually no effect at the time. That itself was a surprise. ASCAP controlled the rights to virtually all the popular music of the day. Try to imagine what would happen if suddenly no one was allowed to use any pop hit from 1950 to the present day in movies, radio or television. That was the sort of power ASCAP had.
And they figured that the everyone would just cave and give them what they wanted. They believed they were needed because there was no demand for the only alternatives: old music and weird ethnic music. They didn't even consider the possibility that their rivals supplying other kinds of music would create a demand for those sorts of music. They didn't consider that possibility because it was too ludicrous to even imagine.
Think of old traditional jazz and swing music and African music today. Both of these exist on the periphery of popular culture. There are occasional hits where this stuff breaks through. But can you imagine them suddenly breaking into the mainstream because the most popular music was suddenly banned for use and people went with what there was a supply for? Can you imagine this fundamentally changing people's taste so they actually came to prefer that other music? Can you imagine it changing the entire culture for decades to come?
Well that is exactly what happened as a result of ASCAP's banning their music from radio stations. From the moment ASCAP pulled it's big bid for power, interest began to grow in old music forms and weird ethnic music. Think of songs that are structured verse then chorus then another verse and back to the chorus and so on until you run out of verses. That's a pretty standard form of pop song today. Virtually every single Beatles song is like that. That structure had all but disappeared in 1930. There was no demand for it anywhere. People considered such songs corny and crass. But when radio stations had no choice but to supply that sort of music, they created new demand for it.
Similar things happened with hillbilly music and what was called "race" music meaning the kinds of music rural whites and rural blacks made for themselves. This stuff wasn't just unpopular, it was an embarrassment to most people. Urban blacks, in particular, associated the music produced by rural blacks with racist stereotypes they were proud of having escaped. Latin American music had similar problems as it too was associated with cultural values that people didn't mind visiting now and then but they didn't want to live there. And yet all three took off as soon as supply grew.
And that was just the beginning because elements from all three of these were combined over the next two decades to create urban blues, rhythm and blues, country, rock and roll, rock, disco, hip hop and soul music. And again, there was no demand for any of these musics until there was a supply.
That is the way human beings are. We learn what to want and how to want it from other people. There are things you are completely unaware of right now that you will crave sometime in the near future. And you will be going along with hundreds if not thousands or even millions of other people when you do.
Those whose object do so partly a matter of political economics. If supply can really create demand then Keynes and Marx were just wrong, end of story. And that would upset a lot of apple carts. But it's pretty obvious that there is a deeper problem and that it is a moral issue. People reject the notion because it upsets their understanding of what a human being should be. They want human beings to be primarily concerned with "real needs" and not subject to passing fashion. Consider, for instance, the person who gets really angry at the thought that a whole lot of people can suddenly have a craving for a product they didn't know existed until it appeared in advertising.
Note that the concern here is not lying. That goes on, of course. I had a gas vendor show up at my door last week and tried to convince me that he was a consumer advocate working to protect my interest. He really was trying to con me into renting a water heater from his company. That is a concern but it's not what upsets people here—what upsets them is the notion that advertising can create a need in me for something that I never needed before. That supply could create demand.
And to argue against such people, the important first step is to acknowledge that advertising can do just that and then consider why that might be a problem. Do they think that advertisers have secret psychological techniques that they can use to manipulate us into wanting things we don't really want? (That was what troubled Marx.) I'm perfectly willing to admit I didn't want some products until I saw them advertised but does that make my want for them false?
One of the important things to show them is that it doesn't have to be advertising to work. Pinaud's Clubman aftershave has been made since 1810 and is not advertised anywhere where I live. It's dirt cheap and is not making large amounts of money for anyone. There is far more money and advertising spent trying to create a need for the latest designer and celebrity scents and all without much success. And yet, the second I learned about Clubman from researching the history of shaving, I wanted some. I didn't just want to try it. I was predisposed to like it. And when I tried it I did like it.
But not any supply can create demand. Huge amounts of sulphur are created as a byproduct of industrial processes but nowhere is there much demand for sulphur. It's not that sulphur is useless. Human excrement also has some uses but we still pay to have it taken away. There simply isn't much demand for these things.
But there are other times when simply supplying something can create a huge demand for it. It can even happen largely by accident. One fascinating case is the ASCAP battle with radio stations that built up over the 1930s finally coming to a head at the end of the decade. It's often conflated with the musician's union battle with radio stations over recorded music but it was something else entirely.
One of the reasons it gets less attention is because it had virtually no effect at the time. That itself was a surprise. ASCAP controlled the rights to virtually all the popular music of the day. Try to imagine what would happen if suddenly no one was allowed to use any pop hit from 1950 to the present day in movies, radio or television. That was the sort of power ASCAP had.
And they figured that the everyone would just cave and give them what they wanted. They believed they were needed because there was no demand for the only alternatives: old music and weird ethnic music. They didn't even consider the possibility that their rivals supplying other kinds of music would create a demand for those sorts of music. They didn't consider that possibility because it was too ludicrous to even imagine.
Think of old traditional jazz and swing music and African music today. Both of these exist on the periphery of popular culture. There are occasional hits where this stuff breaks through. But can you imagine them suddenly breaking into the mainstream because the most popular music was suddenly banned for use and people went with what there was a supply for? Can you imagine this fundamentally changing people's taste so they actually came to prefer that other music? Can you imagine it changing the entire culture for decades to come?
Well that is exactly what happened as a result of ASCAP's banning their music from radio stations. From the moment ASCAP pulled it's big bid for power, interest began to grow in old music forms and weird ethnic music. Think of songs that are structured verse then chorus then another verse and back to the chorus and so on until you run out of verses. That's a pretty standard form of pop song today. Virtually every single Beatles song is like that. That structure had all but disappeared in 1930. There was no demand for it anywhere. People considered such songs corny and crass. But when radio stations had no choice but to supply that sort of music, they created new demand for it.
Similar things happened with hillbilly music and what was called "race" music meaning the kinds of music rural whites and rural blacks made for themselves. This stuff wasn't just unpopular, it was an embarrassment to most people. Urban blacks, in particular, associated the music produced by rural blacks with racist stereotypes they were proud of having escaped. Latin American music had similar problems as it too was associated with cultural values that people didn't mind visiting now and then but they didn't want to live there. And yet all three took off as soon as supply grew.
And that was just the beginning because elements from all three of these were combined over the next two decades to create urban blues, rhythm and blues, country, rock and roll, rock, disco, hip hop and soul music. And again, there was no demand for any of these musics until there was a supply.
That is the way human beings are. We learn what to want and how to want it from other people. There are things you are completely unaware of right now that you will crave sometime in the near future. And you will be going along with hundreds if not thousands or even millions of other people when you do.
No comments:
Post a Comment