Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie
“I’ve been looking at cases where marketing hype has managed to create a craze for an at-best mediocre product. This is not to suggest that advertising is predatory; on the contrary, I think it provides a necessary service by providing information and allowing people to make choices. In the everyday business of buying clothes, food and drink, travel, luxury goods and grooming, I think it informs us of the availability of certain brands and the advantages to be gained by buying them. But there are some cases where advertising and cultural hype can create a kind of epistemic bubble where social conformity substitutes for quality judgement. Promoters sometimes draw on FOMO, the fear of missing out, to herd people into products of limited value to them.” ()7/02/26)