Consumers find out about better prices, higher quality, and ways to improve their lives. For example, advertising from drug companies about allergies, cholesterol, and high blood pressure leads consumers to get needed health care. Advertising corrects flaws in the marketplace. Advertisers often tell consumers what's wrong with competitors' products and services, creating demand for better ones. Calfee provides numerous examples, including cigarette advertising in the 1950s in which companies portrayed their brands as less dangerous.
Advertising regulation does more harm than good.
Consumers suffer when they don't get the information that advertising provides, Calfee says. Calfee acknowledges that advertising attempts to persuade. But consumers don't trust it. Therein lies its value, he says. The dynamics among competing advertisers and between advertisers and consumers tend to keep false advertising in check.