"Sales may lead to advertising as much as advertising leads to sales"
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Michael Schudson, a sociologist and historian of media, challenges the simple, one-way story of persuasion embedded in modern marketing. The line draws attention to a loop of causality rather than a straight arrow: ads can move goods, but thriving goods also move ad budgets. In practice, many firms fund advertising as a percentage of sales. When revenue rises, managers loosen the purse strings and buy more media; when sales dip, ad spend contracts. The observed correlation between advertising and sales, then, often reflects a budget rule or a response to demand already proven in the market rather than the independent power of messages to manufacture desire.
The point is not that advertising is weak, but that it sits inside a larger system of product quality, distribution, pricing, and social meaning. A hit product generates word of mouth, retail enthusiasm, and consumer confidence; advertising follows to stabilize attention, reassure buyers, and consolidate a lead. Ads also act as signals to retailers and investors that a brand intends to dominate its category, a function that becomes more valuable once sales traction is evident. Historically, many mass-market successes achieved scale through innovations in manufacturing and distribution before heavy advertising codified their status.
Schudson asks marketers and the public to be wary of naive causal claims. Measurement that treats advertising as the prime mover risks attributing to persuasion what belongs to product-market fit, timing, and cultural trends. At the same time, ignoring the feedback loop can lead to underinvestment in the very communications that help maintain availability and memory at scale. The practical lesson is to see advertising as part of a co-evolution: it shapes demand and is shaped by it. Strategy improves when companies trace both directions of influence, acknowledging that sales can be a cause of advertising no less than an effect, and that effectiveness rests on the ecology in which messages circulate.
The point is not that advertising is weak, but that it sits inside a larger system of product quality, distribution, pricing, and social meaning. A hit product generates word of mouth, retail enthusiasm, and consumer confidence; advertising follows to stabilize attention, reassure buyers, and consolidate a lead. Ads also act as signals to retailers and investors that a brand intends to dominate its category, a function that becomes more valuable once sales traction is evident. Historically, many mass-market successes achieved scale through innovations in manufacturing and distribution before heavy advertising codified their status.
Schudson asks marketers and the public to be wary of naive causal claims. Measurement that treats advertising as the prime mover risks attributing to persuasion what belongs to product-market fit, timing, and cultural trends. At the same time, ignoring the feedback loop can lead to underinvestment in the very communications that help maintain availability and memory at scale. The practical lesson is to see advertising as part of a co-evolution: it shapes demand and is shaped by it. Strategy improves when companies trace both directions of influence, acknowledging that sales can be a cause of advertising no less than an effect, and that effectiveness rests on the ecology in which messages circulate.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sales |
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