On the free market, if you push a product that is easily duplicated by others, there’s not much point in marketing it. If you successfully generated demand for your product, someone who hadn’t incurred advertising costs could undercut you and you’d be out of the market.
But if you get government to restrict entry into your field, then you CAN aggressively push your product. See microsoft and coke. If I could legally sell burned copies of windows, or copy coke’s formula (and maybe even can design) consumers would not differentiate between our products and the parent company would go broke.
So, historically, what is the reason that cigarette companies so aggressively pushed their brand name? Government intervention?
Microsoft also offers customer support, something you don’t get when you buy the “illegal” version. But I get your point.
That is a good point. Marketing is increased by copyright.
I actually think marketing would be close to nonexistant in a free market. The only things you could market would be uncopyable things. Like tech support or a live speech by a famous person.
The question remains: Why were the cig companies able to market their product? Even if you can’t copy the name “camel” you could still enter the market selling a product identical to Camels’ right?
I think Coke’s formula is a trade secret, not a copyright.
yup–though if you were to someone get ahold of it through legit means I think they could still sue you for “stealing a trade secret”–I could be wrong on this though.
Either way, I doubt marketing would go away; even with easily copyable products…there’s still the first-mover advantage and the trustworthiness of the name. As shown ins “Against Intellectual Monopoly” copiers can and do get profits, but usually the first person to put their newest product on the market captures and retains most of the market and their competitors generally do not catch up.
I don’t think libertarians generally have a problem with trademark in the broad sense, which would prevent out and out fraud (ie: someone copies your product and sells it under the same company name and offers alternative numbers for support, again, with teh same name)., but I really question if the institution of trademark is required to accomplish this.
You could make millions of dollars if you put pirated coke inside cans that looked identical to coca cola’s. Im pretty sure something other than the secrets of corn syrup + water + carbonation is at work here 
Trade secrets are legitimate contracts. The person that would be sued would be the person that leaked the information. There would be no legitimate method of dealing with those that use the information, because at that point it becomes similar to copyright.
that’s fraud though; Austrians and libertarians alike would have a major problem with this.
That said, they’d have no problem if a company figured out (or obtained through legit means) Coke’s formula nad put it in Coke’s own cans but with a didfferent label and sold it to consumers at a discounted price.
Nah its only fraud if you say “made by the original people who discovered the cocacola formula”. If you have a red and white can that says “coca-cola”, it actually IS coca cola, so its not fraud 
Splitting hairs here really. Back on topic! Why didn’t something similar to this happen with cigarette companies? Why were they able to market so aggressively? The market resembles an oligopoly.
I think that’s essentially what you described.
Oooh i love rothbard but don’t have time to listen to it now. Does it include bits about cigarette companies?
I would say its only mildly related. It does attack the position of ‘advertising is unnecessary,’ but he is attacking the people who say that when they also assume perfect knowledge. But he makes other points in terms of product differentiation, and how most economists see it as artificial when consumer’s do not.
There would be incentive both on the part of the manufacturer of a product and its consumer to know if it was the real thing or not, It might just be more profitable for ‘copy cat’ companies to actually try and carve out their own niche, with their own brand.
I have also brought up the idea of trademark registration associations. In which a whole (ideally very large) group of companies would agree to only do business with other companies that had a good reputation in respecting other companies trademarks.
Advertising /= marketing.
Tobacco and alcohol are highly licensed, regulated and even subsidized industries. Corporatism → favoritism & crowding out → big profits
what?
advertising is most certainly marketing. It is part of the promotion part of product, price, placement, and promotion.
Ah you poor Americans with your corn-ethanol lobby![:P] Sugar makes all the difference…