Merchants you take is on quite a journey in this book. Historical perspective going way back to the early days of newspapers. What inspired you to die in this way and go so far back to track how high potential is getting captured . Guest on one of these people who believes our presence is formed by history. It just came to me, writing this book with a reason for writing this book as i started noticing how much of our life is driven by ad model to reduce to be just the media, newspapers, things like that but google, facebook, all of the internet sites. I think i have this experience which may be other people have that as well where i increase we found i would sit down at my computer and maybe try and write one email and then four hours would go by and im like, call it casino effect. I thought our presence have gotten a strange, this ad model where the ideas to resell your audience to other people as opposed to have been by the product itself. It always seem to be counterintuitive. I started thinking like when this is wer went to this reay start . Who invented this . That led me on a search, and i had kind of thought and maybe was roman times or something but it turned out it started more or less in the early, the 19th century in new york so thats what made me go back to it was like the search for the beginning of the river nile. Worded advertising come from . Thats what i wanted to know. Host why was it being in new york . Guest thats a great question. I think it was a number of factors. You started having cities that were really large and enough population that they could address to a newspaper advertisement and get some results. I think it has also allowed to do obviously with the Printing Press and the spread of our newspapers. Newspapers, advertising supported newspapers more expensive, sixth sense at the time. And becaus it isnt just sort od when real spirit in this country that drove it. These things all added up about the same time to create what we call Public Opinion of mass media advertisingbased media. House of representatives early on in the book you introduce this idea that there are occasional revolts against the advertising culture, the methods that advertisers are using to capture our attention. Times when perhaps they go too far. How many of these revolts would you say there have been, and do you think were close to another one now . Guest i think theres been, depends on how you count at least five or six results. Sometimes they are in individual areas were cities so its hard enough each other but theres really big ones nationwide in the depression, really big ones in the 60s. Depends on how you count the whole begins of the unit whether that was her fault or not, and i think were in one now. Host you see in the 60s. Many of our viewers will remember the 60s. What do you term as the advertising revolt that happened in . Guest i would put in Timothy Learys phrase, to name, turn on daschle and point to forget his link go. There was a sense in the 60s, which many of our listeners or viewers may remember, that advertising was the devil. Commercialism had ruined a television, ruined radio. It was time to get away from the big corporate speakers and spend more time with family, sitting in circles with guitars and with each other. The basic tenets of hippie dumb made a big turning away. Some people were history. Timothy leary, i spoke about him at the beginning. Advertising has never been that tough, it hasnt always been there. It was invented and one of the reasons is it is an industry that is harvesting your own mind, your own attention it is by nature always intrusive, always a little distracting, always trying to do something you wouldnt necessarily want to do otherwise. If you were going to buy something otherwise, you wouldnt need advertising. It is always at the edge and it does provoke these results but as an early example in france, very interesting, we now think of the poster as not a big deal to have a poster but in france, we said we had enough of these posters everywhere, there are too many and because people said these are ugly, they should be banned. France has a very expensive regulation still in place, not france, paris still in place, extensive regulations of where posters can be in the city. Which may be one reason when you go to paris it still is a very beautiful place. Its severely limited in where you can advertise so you start with newspapers in the 19th century and then radio. And at first, people think radio, not going to be a great medium for advertising. But they were wrong yes. Amos and andy. Yes. What happened there . People but theres no way radio as you said can be an advertising medium. First of all, it is too precious in Scientific Achievement for us to waste on advertising, no one will ever listen to it. People also thought based on the failure of ad supported theaters, there was a period in the 1910s where a chain of theaters try this idea that the movie would be free but you would watch ads during the break at the beginning and thats how they pay for it, those male. They saidthis is not going to make any money either. But radio , i guess 89 years or something was more or less commercial free but noncommercial. The very first big hit that radio put together was the amos and andy show which originally was a chicago show but eventually came to nbc. The idea of the show was the two white guys taking in what they considered to be negro accents, one of them had grown up in the south area and they had this ongoing plot, 15 minutes every day at 7 pm so that would be to black men who were new to harlem that you know, exploring life and they were kind of rough stereotypes nowadays but for whatever reason, amos and andy caught on like nothing ever before and became the first must listen radio. In some ways they invented prime time by themselves. Everybody, even schedules were rearranged. People started playing the show in the Movie Theater before the movie because they said people would go to the Movie Theater. Based on the idea that these guys were hilarious, established this ritual of prime time which now is such a thing in our lives for the past century. Is that the time, the same time of day we now think of as being Primetime Television . Is not the same but after dinner, 7 00 i guess and slightly earlier. But i think more it was this ritualistic coaxing us into this idea that your evening would be spent with the radio , and later the television. That idea went a lot further in the 1950s when television actually appeared and you had i love lucy shows, insulin shows and you had a big show every evening butamos and andy which at thetime , the ratings were weird. It had 40 to 50 Million Viewers every single day. They had really established something and its amazing, imagine one show with 50 million every day. Thats life after the super bowl or at the time a super bowl every day. It wasincredible. I would have called you out for it saying viewers when you met listeners but you could very well have meant viewers because one of the things researchers noted at the time was that people would stop what they were doing and look at the radio while this was on, on like how they behaved when music was on. Why was that and what did that indicate about the potential of radio to capture attention . This is a great point. With amos and andy, people were gathered around the radio listening, absolutely wrapped. It was able to outcompete dinner conversation or even people playing music at home. Before that radio had been a background thing, music in the background, jazz or Classical Music playing. This was Something Different. And this suggestion that nbc and later cvs said, we have the audience in their home listening and utterly opening the portal of judgment to you. This is a perfect way to reach your customers. And in fact it was. The key word there was in their home. Right. So before amos and andy, before radio, the idea of advertising with people so blatantly within their home was something that just came in, seemed to occur to a lot of people that no ones going to tolerate that. But this is different, inside and outside private and public, but no, somehow unbidden or kind of been but somehow brought in voluntarily and thats how it always must have happened, even in our time, advertisers had penetrated the inner sanctum which basically was the idea that black people are funny. Later on, after they did amos and andy, since his successor which was interesting was the goldbergs which was a show premised on the idea that jewish people are funny. And another comedy so then there was an irish show. The early capture of attention in the United States with the protestant majority was based on the idea that iron the irish, black or jewish people were funny. Thats how the west was one or the home was conquered. Host clearly weve moved far beyond those ideas of whats funny, perhaps area hit the rewind button for me. Tim wu, tell me what was your First Experience that you recall with mass media . What captured your attention as a kid . Guest that is a great question. The other day i was sitting there and irealized somehow i had memorized every single one of the sugar cereal. I was lucky charms, magically delicious. The honeycomb kid. Snap crackle pop,. Host i was fascinated as a child, thisthing with Marshall Mcluhan was that when you watch tv, you realize theres much more effort to the advertisement than there is in the programs and as a child, i had a particularly , for somereason that that and , thats it, which was popular at the time, threes company, i guess that was a little more of an adolescent thing. Host after school, right. Whatever it was, i would watch it. And it was interesting because today, we are talking about revolt. I would do anything i could to avoid advertising. But when i was a kid and a lot of audiences have the same feeling, we sit through the advertisements and that was the way it was. In the 1950s, during my Research People would talk about how they watched television and they would turn off all the lights, not everybody but many people, turn off the lights and patiently sit there, all the ads and consume it absolutely. This was before remote control. Every day, if theres an ad i turn it off. So it was a difference that i think has led to our current lifestyle. Host so you remember the jingles. I assume you are probably watching some cartoons in there somewhere to because thats where they would put the commercials. How did your parents respond to the demands that came as a result of the washing of commercials . My mother, she held for in sugar cereal and i remember being intensely disappointed. I also remember, as a youngster there was this character, like a red bird like character known as woody woodstock that all the other kids were talking about. I had no idea who it was. I told my mother i would basically be illiterate that everyone knew this red woody woodpecker. We didnt have cable. We were broadcast people. And so all the good cartoons were on, there was no question. So yes, i basically fell for whatever it was, what passed for childrens programming at the time which was you know, cartoons and sugar cereal. I also did watch sesame street. I love sesame street, which itself itself had marks of advertising. I remember the letter a and the number five or something. But we had the idea of using advertising content to get children interested in learning to read and that worked. At least to my memory, it was in fact better than the other shows. But that was my childhood. I was raised on that just like everyone else. The last thing about that is i didnt realize this at the time but there were shows like thetransformers, i dont know if you remember the robots , and i didnt think of them at the time is advertising. But if you look at any minute, you say of course they are advertising for the toys. Course people by the toys and the fact that we are watching advertisers , of course with mdd, which was the video, one day it dawned on me that those videos were actually trying to get you to buy the album. So i guess it was just a study in advertising, maybe thats why i wrote the book. Theres this idea that advertising to children, this idea is still around thats fundamentally different from advertising adults. Theres certain lines that are not supposed to be crossed. There are certain rules about the sort of images and the sesame street mention brings that the mind because it was this idea that wasprotected speech , kind of like the home was a protected space before radio got mature. Is that still the case with children . Are there new rules of the road whats happening there . I think things have gotten better than they used to be in the 1980s. This continually goes up and down, it depends on the administration speaking legally. I think there is a broad sense among scientists and pediatricians that not only are children more susceptible to advertising but its that green time is not necessarily good for children. I think it was the last couple of days the American Association of pediatricians say let your children to no more than one hour a day of television and by that, myself and other children were completely having our minds blown already so its amazing we could function anymore but i think children are genuinely understood to be more credulous. Certainly if you absorb a brand of the child, this is one of the reasons in particular its always been a brand particularly for children is because Brand Association from a young age, im not a neuroscientist, straightforward logic tells you that buying a giant cadillac, bmw, once you have that in their head as something of quality or value, my daughter is three recognizes delta airlines, she recognizes all these logos, she uses the word facetime so i think this is always been a concern. The extent to which is regulated or overseen depends on the administration. I think things were in the 50s, the 80s were an alltime low in terms of, it was sort of everything goes and i think more attention is being paid to how much advertising is going on today. On the other hand, i could go on, there has been an increase in the last decade of advertising tools. And maybe thats something you want to talk about is that because there has been such increased public funding, some Public Schools in poor areas have become so desperate they started selling out the inside of school for advertising purposes you cansee pictures of schools in minnesota , some in california where the very halls, the lockers are totally covered in ads. You walk through the school and its a constant advertisingexperience. Host how long does that work . I dont think they make much money. These schools make millions of dollars, how well does it work . The companies are happy with it. The advertising seems happy with it. How well does it work for schools . I dont think they make that much money. They dont make millions and they are getting hundreds of thousands advertising revenue , maybe at the margins so it goes back to this idea of there being certain spaces that were once sort of inviolate or sacred. I think they are being increasingly commercializedon the ends. One of the things i read about , that i did research for the book was another space of advertisement is churches. There are, not all the time but there are efforts certainly by hollywood filmmakers to try to put product placements there so for example the man of steel, that superman movie, they have a lot of screenings for passengers, they had this sermon provided, jesus was the first superhero. Sometimes they had contests, mailing that you use for name of the movie and your sermon and withdraw for money or something. There was an effort to get the church audience in. What im saying is a lot of sacred things are being challenged in our time. Host right and its interesting you mention in the book that some of the early language around advertising and the idea of capturing attention was something that churches really used. Its interesting to that theres this move with and even religious organizations in some cases to adopt the same sorts of attention grabbing methods that have now been pioneered in the broader society. If you want to talk about history , advertising history, many of the modern attentiongetting techniques around religion and the work propaganda itself was invented, i believe the jesuits and it was the sense of propagating the faith, part of the calendar of reformation though when we talk wrongly about the game trying to fight for attention, trying to make audiences on a regular basis pay some attention to a message, certainly organized religion got there before. One of the themes of my book and i think the theme for the last 200 years is the sense that our consciousness or our mind space about it was something that organized religion was the most, for most of Human History and the last 200 years or so, government propaganda. And then commerce or industry through advertising got in on the game. And so another way of describing what im trying to say in this book is a longterm, lets say, context or competition between organized religion and government and industry, all of whom want to get all our time, attention or consciousness and the bottom line is that churches and other religions have been losing. That one of the reasons they are adopting these techniques, modern advertising techniques, is they have to compete. They cant expect people to show up just because they feel bound to. They are intense competition with sunday football, for one example. Theres a lot of stuff on the weekend and they are in a desperate competition. Thats the one reason church has become, heres whats in it for you. Come to church and feel good, you will feel prosperous. Im not an expert on religion but my sense is that the older i get, you come to church or you are in a faith or have eternal damnation, its more the temporary idea that if you come to church , its basically to relax, so you can maybe become rich for prosperity. Heres whats in it for you. And. Host have you found a similar trajectory to how you talk about advertising developing from your what ails you and save you from death to you know, help you deliver better life. But i want to turn to, you mentioned government and you bring up in the book that government was an early innovator in marketing and capturing attention. The uk in particular, britain versus germany. It was able to capture mass attention and get people to do something that had not been done before on a massive scale. What exactly was that achieving and how did it come about . That achievement is otherwise described as world war i propaganda. Which Great Britain was the inventor of masks, systemized propaganda and the master of it in the fir