midnight
`` Maybe . Two years ago that would have sounded reasonable to me . Two years ago , when I walked down Broadway at night , a fifty-foot electric sign at Forty-second was just an electric sign to me . Just part of the town 's decoration like the chorus girls , and the midnight theater crowds . Now -- well , now every blink of every red and yellow globe is crammed full of meaning . I know the power that advertising has ; how it influences our manners , and our morals , and our minds , and our health . It regulates the food we eat , and the clothes we wear , and the books we read , and the entertainment we seek .