The new edition of Contemporary Advertising brings with it several changes that, in our opinion, greatly enhance the comprehensive coverage that instructors and students have come to expect from the book. One change that we are very proud of is the inclusion of “People behind the Ads.” In “People behind the Ads” we introduce students to some of the important individuals from advertising’s past and present. The group includes historical giants, living legends, and fresh new faces that are helping to change the profession. We are especially excited that many of our featured professionals took time to share their thoughts with readers of Contemporary Advertising.

We added this feature to help humanize the concepts and practices that we present throughout the text. We also believe that the individuals in the “People behind the Ads” feature will serve as role models for students trying to find their own place in the exciting world of advertising.

The book also includes two new ethics boxes that update the ethical issues surrounding advertising practice. In Chapter 3 we broach the controversy of minority representation in advertising agencies. This issue came to a head in 2007 when a New York commission threatened to compel testimony from agency CEOs about their hiring practices during the highly visible “Advertising Week” program. As we hope this ethics case makes clear, valuing diversity as a goal and implementing concrete policies that help achieve it are different matters. Then, in Chapter 15 we introduce the controversy that surrounded Facebook’s Beacon program. Perhaps more than any other single event, Beacon helped crystallize the issue of privacy concerns for hundreds of thousands of Web users. The ultimate changes that Facebook made in response to consumer concerns are powerful illustrations of how consumerism remains an effective force in the digital age.

Advertising has the subtle ability to reach out and touch everyone living and working in the modern world today. In fact, at some point in their lives, most people will probably become creators of advertising—whether they design a flyer for a school car wash, write a classified ad for a garage sale, or develop a whole campaign for some business, charitable event, or political cause.

During the first half of the twentieth century, advertising may have been viewed as a particularly American institution. But that is certainly no longer the case. In fact, as early as 1917, British novelist Norman Douglas affirmed the global significance of advertising when he remarked, “You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.” That was before the advent of radio and television. Today, our voices are no longer limited by the scope of twentieth-century media. Thanks to the Internet and a variety of online database services, people and organizations can now send advertising messages to millions of people around the world—instantly. Advertising is undergoing a transformation of historic proportions—from a monopolistic corporate monologue to a totally democratic dialogue. Suddenly everybody has a voice.

That makes the study of advertising more important today than ever before, not only for students of business or journalism—who may be contemplating a career in the field—but also for students of sociology, psychology, political science, economics, history, language, science, or the arts. Many of these people will become users of advertising; all will be lifetime consumers of it.

The study of advertising gives students, regardless of their major field of study, many valuable tools to use in any subsequent profession. It teaches them to think and plan strategically; gather and analyze primary and secondary research data; compute and evaluate alternative courses of action; cooperate with a team in developing creative solutions to a problem; analyze competitive proposals; understand why people behave the way they do; express themselves and their ideas with clarity and simplicity; defend their point of view with others; appreciate and assess the quality of different creative endeavors; and use data to speak with knowledge, confidence, and conviction. In addition, students of business, journalism, and communications gain several specific benefits. By studying advertising, they will learn to

■ Discern the real economic, social, and cultural role of advertising and, conversely, the impact of a society’s values on advertising.

■ Understand how advertising supports the profession of journalism and relates to the whole field of communications.

■ Appreciate the important global effect of marketing and advertising on business, industry, and national economies.

■ Comprehend the strategic function of advertising within the broader context of business and marketing.

■ Evaluate and appreciate the impressive artistic creativity and technical expertise required in advertising.

■ Discover what people in advertising and related disciplines do, how they do it, and the expanding career opportunities these fields now offer.