Look at the Puffs!

Dr. Nicolas Mason, the Beckham Communications Lecturer, had two major points: The first was more elemental, and, given his audience, lacked sparkle. He based it off two common myths about advertising: first, that it originated in America, and second, that it is an invention of the mid-nineteenth century. He disproved both with pictures, facts, and examples. He showed a picture of some ancient ads that were found on the walls of Pompeii. Apparently the city features the long-ago pleas for customers to solicit brothels and doctors. He also provided pictures and editorials on the state of advertising in London in the 1700s.

            His second point was far more interesting to me. He talked about puffery, which is essentially the last legal form of deception in advertising (e.g. “Red Bull gives you wings”). Puffery is of English origin, and it referred mostly to books at first. Apparently literary magazines, growing desperate competition, began allowing authors, or at least their close friends and relatives, to write the reviews for their own books. Needless to say, these reviews lacked something in the way of objectivity, and the “buttered” reviews, filled with “superlatives,” were known as “puffs.” His contention was that this excess of advertising not just coincided with, but caused, the economic collapse of the British publishing industry in the early 1800s. I was skeptical at first, but when I thought on it, all of the classic British writers I (and the two other people I discussed this with) can think of are from the Regency, Romantic, and Victorian period, not the Georgian.

            To explain the “so-what” of the lecture, Dr. Mason used Amazon.com. Apparently the site began with the goal of bringing English majors and Bohemians together to “preach the gospel of literature from the pulpit of the internet.” In time though, they began offering a $10,000 package in which a book was given a prominent location on the website and a custom “Amazon review treatment.” When this came to light, the editorial staff was fired in favor of the volunteer reviews we see today. Although these can be subjective, authors have been known to post glowing reviews of their own books—anonymously, of course. One author created a list of the “Best Hundred American books of the last century.” The Great Gatsby was Number 1, but his book came in at Number 5.

            Dr. Mason drew on the experiences of the past to make a judgment call for the present and future. His contention is that puffery is alive and well today. He believes that, just as it “killed” the literature of Georgian Britain, puffery is adversely affecting America’s struggling publishing industry today.