Advertising should be BANNED from TV and Radio

Thanks for instigating this debate. Since this is a normative question, the burden of proof is shared. I assume that advertising refers to paid announcements by a business.Economic ArgumentsArgument 1: Advertising is almost always waste of resources Advertising is a waste of resources. Advertising comes in two forms: informative and persuasive. Persuasive advertising tends to be more prevalent than informative advertising; this ranges from celebrity endorsements to “advertising showdowns” between various major brands. This provides no tangible benefit to the consumer of these products, aside from the amusement of course. Instead, a lot of time, money and effort is spent on planning and executing tedious advertising ventures. This has an opportunity cost for the consumer: all this time, money and effort could instead be spent on improving the quality of the product and the quality of the customer’s experience. Informative advertising is only not a waste of resources if it leads the customer to making an informed decision and purchasing the right product. I have outlined below why that is often not the case and the repercussions have already been mentioned above. Argument 2: Advertising will result in higher prices in the long run Since advertising creates a cost with no tangible benefit (in other words, customers wouldn’t pay for advertising on its own), it drives up the costs of firms engaging in advertising. In the long run, this would result in higher prices for consumers, depleting consumer surplus and affecting their welfare.To say that an industry should exist simply because it provides employment to people is an economic threat, because it means that money is being spent on something that cannot generate growth. As economic growth is a macroeconomic goal of government, it would be the wise option to ban advertising. Non-economic Arguments Argument 3: Advertising can be misleadingThe firm producing the good has more information about the good than the buyer. This information asymmetry results in firms pushing the envelope in a bid to persuade consumers to purchase their products. Customers rarely understand the product and the industry before buying a good. Consequently, they do not know which product best suits their needs before they purchase it. Let’s look both at persuasive and informative advertising. Persuasive advertising is easy to analyse. Persuasive advertising attempts to skew the customer’s perception of their product with minimal consideration of whether the product really is suitable for the consumer. If a consumer sees an advertisement of one firm and buys its product, when instead the firm’s competitor’s product would have been more suitable, then the advertisement has succeeded in getting business for the firm, but it has come at a cost to the consumer. Informative advertising is a lot more, well some might even say altruistic. It attempts to give more information to the customer about the product and thereby enable the customer to make a more informed decision. However, very often, customers (especially first time buyers) are unable to weigh the options accurately on their own, or make an appropriate decision, because they are unaware of the criteria that go into purchasing the product. The customer, overwhelmed by the information, may end up choosing randomly to get out of their confusion, even if the advertised product is the right one for them. At the end of the day, it is important to understand the dynamics at play. Firms exist to provide benefit to consumers and households. Consumers do not exist to create jobs for firms. As long as firms are hiding behind advertising in a bid to escape their responsibility to consumers, the dynamic will never be at an optimal scale. As an alternative, firms may instead find it better to use the advertising money to fund an organization that will understand consumers’ needs and send them to the right business. If one business gets a larger market share, then it would be an indication that they are doing something right that other businesses should emulate, and that we, as a society, would want continued in the future. We can therefore conclude that advertising should be banned. Looking forward to your response.