It is difficult to refute David Ogilvy regarding advertising's place in American life. It is difficult, simply because--at least as he explains it--Ogilvy was an ethical practitioner of the art of letting people know what goods, services and ideas were available for their pleasure. And he seems to think most of his colleagues were, as well. If it is possible to refute his very balanced argument, it would be on the basis of the changes in the advertising marketplace that have led to non-sensical excesses of every stripe, excesses Ogilvy would doubtless have abhorred had they been obvious when he wrote "What's Wrong with Advertising?" (Ogilvy, date unknown, page n/a).

             An article in The Atlantic Monthly in 1997 explained communications professor Joseph Turow's attitude against advertising. Turow proposed that in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, "marketers, advertisers, and media companies developed a view of American society that was not only strikingly different from the grand theory that had preceded it but also opposed to the national interest" (Atlantic Monthly, 1997, pp. 113-120). No longer did they view the American marketplace as a single mass that was predictable in its reaction to various information and entertainment sources: rather, Turow noted that their pecuniary interests were divided, often along lines of race, class and gender, and that by encouraging these divisions-emphasizing them-marketers, advertisers and media could make more money with less trouble " (Atlantic Monthly, 1997, pp. 113-120). .

             Turow had, the article pointed out, discovered a "revolutionary shift" obviously unknown to Ogilvy when he wrote his essay. Turow believes that advertisers and the media companies they employ are forcing "a breakdown in social cohesion" (quoted by Atlantic Monthly, 1997, pp. 113-120), which will virtually end the American ideal. He predicted that alienation and anger would be the result, and that in the new media world, the citizen would lose out to the advertiser.