Fromm summarised the multi-billion dollar advertising industry as such: "We live in a historical period characterized by a sharp discrepancy between the intellectual development of man... and his mental-emotional development, which has left him still in a state of marked narcissism with all its pathological symptoms." “A vast sector of modern advertising . . . does not appeal to reason but to emotion; like any other kind of hypnoid suggestion, it tries to impress its objects emotionally and then make them submit intellectually."
