DSK wrote:




You should see the stockholders reports from some of these companies. It
is invariably brought up that they increased R&D spending, show lovely
full color glossy photos of smiling people in hi-tech labs, etc etc. It
is also almost invariably proposed by a non-board member shareholder to
reduce advertising funding, whereupon it is pointed out that increasing
R&D leads to increased income by some tiny fraction whereas increasing
advertising raises income by a whopping multiplier.

Well if we omit the hyperbole, I agree with you, investment in product promotion
returns a much higher yield than R&D, I just find it perplexing to hear pharmacuticals
pleading that they need twenty year patent protection to recoup their R&D funding when in fact those funds represent
a relatively small fraction of operating costs, advertising outstrips it by about 10 to 1 for most companies.



Cheers
Marty