In Japan, there are lifestyle magazines that are almost nothing but advertisements and are wildly popular, beautifully designed, and remarkably informative ("Po

In Japan, there are lifestyle magazines that are almost nothing but advertisements and are wildly popular, beautifully designed, and remarkably informative ("Popeye" is a good example). One can argue about the social merits of consumerism, but I think the quality of advertisements is directly proportional to how much their culture of origin values "taste" (again, debatably for good or ill).