Not seeing the wood for the imaginary trees. Or, who's messing with our article? A reply to Ambler (2008)

Ambler has been very quick to comment on our recent paper in this journal (Nairn & Fine, IJA, 27(3), 2008) in which we discuss the implications of recent findings from the cognitive sciences for the ethics of advertising to children. We welcome this opportunity to address some of the many misunderstandings, misattributions and misplaced criticisms that constitute Ambler's commentary, as well as to re-emphasise and expand on some of the important points from our paper. First, we briefly review the line of argument of our original paper. Those who have read Ambler's response need fear no boredom through repetition, as our thesis bears little resemblance to the version of it provided by Ambler. Next, we address the seven issues characterised by Ambler as 'contentious', a description that turns out to depend on fundamental mischaracterisations of our account. Finally, we reiterate the central conceptual and practical points of our paper. Discussion of the effects and ethics of marketing to children will continue to be incomplete so long as discussants fail to acknowledge, and address in the form of a mature debate, the role of implicit cognition in consumer psychology.