Americans are finding their satisfaction from life as consumers rather than Vance Packard observed at the Ford Hall Forum. he shunned critical analysis, the quasi-sociologist furnished a of amusing anecdotes and appall-statistics concerning American folly.

to Packard, for example, the family in this country spends year on packaging. It is subjected worth of direct advertising 300 hours of television commerce and 200 hours of radio appeals. , it discards 750 metal contain year as U.S. Steel continues to the "throw-away mood."

Foster Population Growth

, Packard claimed, view the population with unadulterated . Every newborn child is an-customer. But, the new customers some people that "pollute the air up the beaches." Commercial has obscured this obvious , he asserted. A caption to a advertisement depicting a stork the spirit: "This bird means ."

Teenagers have assumed immense importance as consumers. Adolescent purchases now total $10 billion a year and the average teenager has $500 at his disposal annually--four times as much as in 1945. Quoting a trade journal, Packard suggested that "teenagers do not respect authority but do respect advertising." They constitute a great reservoir of gullibility, he maintained.

Commercial exploiters are even infiltrating the sub-teen set, Packard alleged. "Tens of thousands of girls aged 9-10 are wearing brassieres, and that is one of the real marketing achievements of our era." They may well be buying the brassieres on credit, for many stores now provide junior credit cards.