[jacquesm]

Obviously not, but the argument was made that because advertising is tax deductible that it was essentially free. Nobody talked about the effective result of the advertising on the bottom line because of the extra revenue that it might bring, or how bad it would be to advertise ineffectively.

[Retric]

Obviously not err my point was 1B in pretax money is generally worth significantly less than 900M in after tax money.

Clearly it's not free, but due to the tax break advertizing can have a lower ROI and still be a better investment.