A world without advertisements

President Harry S. Truman the founder of the GSA said,

“Without advertising, information would take years to reach all of us who might benefit by it and progress would be delayed”

Take a moment to imagine a world without advertising, without marketing, without sales, without promotion.

Take away the telemarketers, the salesmen, and the sales presentations.

Remove the magazines ads, the newspaper ads, and the television commercials. 

Lose the post cards, door hangers, and fliers.

Take away all the online ads, online shops, and shopping carts.

Tear down all the billboards and store signs.

Silence all radio ads and street vendors.

Stop production on all promotional items i.e. pens, caps, jackets, patches, buttons, etc.

Scratch anything at all that would tell you anything about anything you could buy.

Remove it all from your imaginary world.

Movie trailers, sitcom trailers, concert promotions, soda labels, amazon.com, ebay, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

It is a very perfectly quiet and peaceful world…

…until you need something.

Now you are standing in the middle of the equivalent of a quiet village in the 14th century.

Now lets say you get an infection.

You will probably die because you couldn’t get the proper medication because the drug store doesn’t exist because it couldn’t sell products that didn’t exist in the first place because the manufacturer had know way of knowing that the scientist 1000 miles away came up with a simple antiseptic that could have prevented the infection in the first place.

You probably contracted the infection from the cut on your hand when you were working in your garden or tending your cattle or feeding your chickens because there is no such thing as grocery stores.  How can a grocery store exist when it can’t promote products that aren’t produced in the first place because the dairy couldn’t advertise, the farmer could advertise, the baker couldn’t advertise, the shipping company doesn’t even exist, and what is a processing plant or distributor anyway?

Take some time to really create this world in your mind and then ask yourself if you would like to live in it.  If so, then there are still places you can buy land and live off it as you please.

Or maybe you like your car, your latte, your clothing, your favorite movies, dvd player, ipod, musicians singing on the ipod, air conditioning, insulated housing, paved roads, electricity, grocery stores, medicine, hospitals, fire trucks, ambulances, weather warning systems, the job you have because your employer can advertise, etc. ad infinitum again.

If so, then please re-read the President Harry S. Truman quote above and keep in mind the communication conduit that lead us to the state of civilization we have today (advertising), and stop complaining.

Ever hear of the phrase about biting the hand that feeds?

Michael Graves

GSA1000

michaelg@gsa1000.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellynngraves

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