The sponsor may be viewed as a potentate with a…

The sponsor may be viewed as a potentate with a strong influence over currents of thought in our society, exercised mainly through television [...] It has tended to displace or overwhelm other influences such as newspapers, school, church, grandpa, grandma. It has become the definer and transmitter of society’s values.

Sourced

Erik Barnouw, The Sponsor: Notes On a Modern Potentate (Oxford University Press, 1978 ), page 74-75, ISBN 0-19-502614-4

Other Advertising Quotes

It is sometimes argued that advertising really does little harm because no one believes it any more anyway. We consider this view to be erroneous. The greatest damage done by advertising is precisely that it incessantly demonstrates the prostitution of men and women who lend their intellects, their voices, their artistic skills to purposes in which they themselves do not believe, and that it teaches [in the words of Leo Marx] ‘the essential meaninglessness of all creations of the mind: words, images, and ideas.’ The real danger from advertising is that it helps to shatter and ultimately destroy our most precious non-material possessions: the confidence in the existence of meaningful purposes of human activity and respect for the integrity of man. - View Quote Details on It is sometimes argued that advertising really does little harm…
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Advertising reaches out to touch the fantasy part of people’s lives. And you know, most people’s fantasies are pretty sad. - View Quote Details on Advertising reaches out to touch the fantasy part of people’s…