Add it up, and it's a substantial attack. What has happened until now has been that these different interests and different products have sought to defend themselves individually, and very rarely has there been a concerted attempt to make the case for freedom of advertising. The industry has not been good at defending itself, and what it has conspicuously failed to do is to mount an intellectual defense. Without that defense, it will lose the battle, both in Europe and in the rest of the world, to maintain freedom of commercial speech. First, the defense normally points out how much information there is, and how little persuasive content there is, but it ignores the fact that there is nothing wrong in persuasive speech.
Persuasive speech is as old and reputable as factual, informative speech.
It occupies, in fact, a far larger domain in everyday conduct. A good two thirds of speech that goes on is of a persuasive character. Most politicians' speech is persuasive. Most artistic speech is persuasive. Much religious speech is persuasive.