Recently, with much public irritation being expressed at the blatancy, duration and frequency of radio commercials, careful tests have been made to determine the effect on the market. The result has been the discovery that irritation has great "attention-getting power" and that those irritated in this respect are reliable customers. Nausea has, therefore, become a new principle of commercial dynamics as of esthetics.
“American Advertising”, published In Horizon, No.93-4, October (1947), reprinted in Mass Culture: the Popular Arts in America,(1957), reprinted as McLuhan Unbound #9 (2005), p 14
Year: 1947
Chapter:
Advertising
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan