Crumby Speculates - Advertising, Does It Work?

There I was, hurtling along in the stygian darkness, headed off in the general direction of the Tabby Lab, our bucolic Druid college in these parts. I was on an urgent errand, undertaken at the behest of the Lovely Druidess Rayetta. My faithful servant, Lleu Llaw Guffes, the Lion of the Steady Hand had his steady hand on the wheel of the great vehicle, negotiating the great vehicle this way or that so that we might stay on the road.

After a while I wearied of fretting over whether Lleu Llaw actually has a driver’s license or insurance and began to Ovate. But no Ovations came to mind. So then I gazed out the window of the great vehicle, hurtling along, gazing into the stygian darkness lit up only by only a billion electric lights. I began to think, furiously. But two topics were competing for attention within my capacious noggin; advertising, does it work, versus the Camelidae of South America; alpaca, guanaco and llama of Genus Lama and the vicuna of Genus Vicugna.

The guanaco is the presumed wild ancestor of the domesticated alpaca and llama. Guanaco life is made miserable these days by human persecution and colonialism, so that the numbers and distribution of these gentle camels has greatly abated. The same fate has overtaken the vicuna.

Interestingly, the llama has the distinction of being the only native new world beast of burden, domesticated to donkey status by the Incas, long ago. These days, llamas must compete with motorized vehicles to keep their jobs, so just like US Homeland Proles, they are in decline. Happily, some lucky llamas are popular as pets. The alpaca, on the other hand, is increasing by leaps and bounds, valued as it is, for its fleece.

No doubt, the alpaca fleece industry advertises garments curried from the fleece of the fortunate alpaca. But so far, I, the Crumby Ovate, have not been specifically targeted by the alpaca industry as a likely purchaser of alpaca mittens. Why not? Maybe they have tried, but not succeeded in contacting me. After all, vendors attempting to invade the CB, electrically, are automatically cursed with genital warts. Or maybe I do not fall within their demographic purview of likely alpaca fleece consumers.

Advertising, does it work? The assumption is, maybe, that everyone has to buy necessary stuff, like water, food, new underwear, transportation and shelter. But suchlike paltry purchasing could never expand the economy at the frenetic pace necessary to support an advertising industry. No, no, no, advertising focuses our attentions on purchasing the unnecessary, but newer and more luxurious or ingenious items that we all so desire, like, for example, health insurance, or a Cadillac pickup that parallel parks itself.

But does advertising work? What proportion of an increase in the Homeland Gross National Product is demonstrably attributable to advertising, apart from the increase directly attributable to growth in the advertising industry itself? Does anybody know?

In all the long annals of Druidry, only one Druid was ever afflicted, distally, by advertising and he was a mere Bard who had not completed his training. Anyway, off he went to earn his keep, singing songs for the bourgeoisie in those parts. His wages included free Dolmens. So after a time of singing melodically and guzzling up one Dolmen after another, he needed to go to the comfort station. But he got mixed up and went to a closet instead. When he opened the closet door, a multitude of boxed up ladies’ shoes fell on him. Happily, the young Bard took only a glancing blow to his noggin and was only partially buried in the sudden blizzard of ladies’ shoes.

So adverting may work. That’s why I am considering a new career as a ladies’ shoe salesman.