Slashdot Mirror
Is Advertising Morally Justifiable? The Importance of Protecting Our Attention
theodp writes: With Is Advertising Morally Justifiable?, philosopher Thomas Wells is out to change the way you think about Google and its ilk. Wells says: "Advertising is a natural resource extraction industry, like a fishery. Its business is the harvest and sale of human attention. We are the fish and we are not consulted. Two problems result from this. The solution to both requires legal recognition of the property rights of human beings over our attention. First, advertising imposes costs on individuals without permission or compensation. It extracts our precious attention and emits toxic by-products, such as the sale of our personal information to dodgy third parties. Second, you may have noticed that the world's fisheries are not in great shape. They are a standard example for explaining the theoretical concept of a tragedy of the commons, where rational maximising behaviour by individual harvesters leads to the unsustainable overexploitation of a resource. Expensively trained human attention is the fuel of twenty-first century capitalism. We are allowing a single industry to slash and burn vast amounts of this productive resource in search of a quick buck."
"The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. With the Nazis it was funded by the government, but in the United States, it's funded by corporations and corporations they only want things to happen that will make people want to buy stuff. So whatever that is, then that is considered okay and good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it really serves people's thinking - it can stupify and make not very good things happen."
- Crispin Glover: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm000...
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"You do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll call forever. End of story, OK? You're another corporate shill, you're another whore at the capitalist gang bang."
- ("Artistic Roll Call," Bill Hicks Rant in E-Minor (1997)).
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Memorable quotes for
Looker (1981)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
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"John Reston: Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power."
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"It's only logical to assume that conspiracies are everywhere, because that's what people do. They conspire. If you can't get the message, get the man." - Mel Gibson (from an interview)
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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William Casey, CIA Director
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"The real reason for the official secrecy, in most instances, is not to keep the opposition (the CIA's euphemistic term for the enemy) from knowing what is going on; the enemy usually does know. The basic reason for governmental secrecy is to keep you, the American public, from knowing - for you, too, are considered the opposition, or enemy - so that you cannot interfere. When the public does not know what the government or the CIA is doing, it cannot voice its approval or disapproval of their actions. In fact, they can even lie to your about what they are doing or have done, and you will not know it. As for the second advantage, despite frequent suggestion that the CIA is a rogue elephant, the truth is that the agency functions at the direction of and in response to the office of the president. All of its major clandestine operations are carried out with the direct approval of or on direct orders from the White House. The CIA is a secret tool of the president - every president. And every president since Truman has lied to the American people in order to protect the agency. When lies have failed, it has been the duty of the CIA to take the blame for the president, thus protecting him. This is known in the business as "plausible denial." The CIA, functioning as a secret instrument of the U.S. government and the presidency, has long misused and abused history and continues to do so."
- Victor Marchetti, Propaganda and Disinformation: How the CIA Manufactures History
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George Carlin:
"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choic
It is pretty much the only way to fund "free" services of all kinds that have large reach but no direct income. Radio, TV, and most websites would not exist but for it, and it is a meritocracy as well - if the advertized product sucks, or the ad sucks, the advertiser loses their money with no reward. The opposite holds as well - a good product and a good ad can be very beneficial to customers and the advertiser.
Someone needs to cut back on the weed and spend some time in the world of reality here to even bring up the question.
The best thing you can say about Advertising is that it is a waste of human effort. The highest form of advertising is when you get to be completely misleading without breaking any laws. When your noblest goal is to deceive, you are probably morally bankrupt. Advertising is simply another disgusting artifact of our culture of greed, by which I mean capitalism.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I can't remember ever encountering a Slashdot summary that had me literally shouting in agreement.
The thing is, though, we are being compensated for our attention, with exactly the thing most people are looking for, whether they'd admit to it or not -- novelty and stimulation. It's unfortunate, I think, that this "extraction process" is diverting our attention from more productive outlets. But when has it ever been different? When have the masses, the majority, ever voluntarily directed their attention to productive outlets, instead of directing it to escapism or religious ritual on the rare occasions when it's not consumed by the fight for basic survival?
Marketing is by the College Textbook definition, the act of communicating that you provide something that meets someone's wants and needs and provide utility. Government Agencies, Schools, Non-Profit institutions, also engage in Marketing. But Marketing has a few stipulations to it. One is that Marketed ideas have to be factual. Or "True". And that our society of markets, consumers are supposed to know everything about the products they buy. They don't. And Advertisers are a huge part of the problem.
Advertisers in todays world are not only misleading people, they in some cases use malicious code to deceive and steal from people by any means necessary. They are effectively burglars who attempt to break into your computer and steal any information possible by using security vulnerabilities to do that.
Television in the U.S. gives us strong evidence that advertisers are "over-fishing" their audience.
Many years ago, shows on TV would be longer; and commercial breaks would be fewer and shorter. Some shows had only one sponsor: the "Colgate Comedy Hour", the "U.S. Steel Hour" (drama), "Milton Berl" (comedy sponsored by Texaco), "Armstrong Theater" (drama sponsored by Armstrong Floors and Carpets), "The Voice of Firestone" (both popular and classical vocal music sponsored by Firestone Tires), and "I Love Lucy" (comedy sponsored by Phillip Morris Tobacco).
Today, TV shows are shorter so that commercial breaks can be longer and more frequent. Furthermore, more commercials are packed into each break. I have counted advertisements for four different automobile manufacturers in a single break. I also notice the constant selling of health-care products -- both over-the-counter and prescription -- one right after another. And then there are the same commercials repeated during a single break. We are so saturated with TV advertising that few commercials create any lasting impression on consumers.
If I were the CEO of an automobile or pharmaceutical manufacturer, I would order my marketing department to insist that any TV commercial from my company must not appear during the same commercial break as a product from a competing company. Nor would I allow my commercials to appear within 15 minutes of another commercial break advertising products from a competing company. Yes, such restrictions would cost my company more than the current saturation placement of commercials; but the lasting impression of isolating my advertisements from my competitors would be worth the cost.
Yes to #1, take your TV, throw it out the window. Tune your radio to NPR, install Ad Block, Flash Block, uBlock, Ghostery, etc. on your web browser. You will be shocked - SHOCKED - to find out from your friends when the latest summer blockbuster movies are coming out.
When I moved out of the house at 19 I did not take a TV with me, and I did not miss it. Only at 29 did I buy a TV, and only then so I could watch Netflix on a larger screen, in my living room.
moox. for a new generation.
Yes, advertising is morally justifiable as long as there is choice to not be exposed to that advertising. If there is a website that you are required to go to for say the IRS or other government services. Or you're required to go there for your school or some other "required" website, then it gets far more murky. But if you are going to a commercial or entertainment or even a news site, then it is totally morally justifiable, since there is no requirement that you visit that site. You are agreeing to the consumption of the content for "free," you are really paying with your attention, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Then when you throw in AdBlock and it's ilk into the mix, which allows you to bypass the attention sale, I think it's totally justifiable.
To take it a step further, if you could somehow mandate (haha) that advertising be easily blockable, then it goes even further into the justifiable category, since only those wish to see the advertising would be seeing it. That's the choice... We should not limit people in what they can and can't do just because we don't agree with where we "spend" out attention. Not that anyone is suggesting that. I don't think the question is whether it's morally justifiable or not, since advertising really doesn't have a moral component, so long as there is choice (and there currently is) - if and when the advertising crosses over into the forced and unavoidable advertising, then it absolutely is NOT justifiable under any circumstance.
I really think that is the ultimate crux here: If a person can avoid the advertising (either through a switch, through AdBlock et al or by not visiting the site) then it's totally justifiable. If it is forced upon the person or on a site that you are required to visit for something that is unavoidable (Government services, etc...) then no, it's not justifiable at all.
Other than that, the free market should decide. If the advertising is too much on a site, then don't visit it... that company will either change it's ways or go out of business.
Exactly. The "we" discussed in TFS, and presumably in whatever it is summarizing, is not me, and therefore as far as I am concerned, resolve to a "them", as in, the person(s) who wrote it.
I don't pay any attention to advertising at all unless I am proactively seeking a product in a store, virtual or otherwise, and then only to specific instances that are relevant.
I don't watch broadcast television, I don't read billboards, I completely ignore banners and side-column ads, I don't open mail that isn't from a lawyer, a utility or some faction of the government, and I neither care what people want to put in ads nor am I affected by said content.
The only effect web ads have on me, at least until the IP shows up in my hosts list, is to slow pages down. Once it gets into the hosts list, it turns into an error message instead of an ad, and I ignore those too, while my browsing speeds back up (if you're not using your hosts file to nuke advertisers and their cookie-mining minions, you're foregoing a great tool, presuming you don't actually want to see ads, which I suppose is not a given.)
The only way they'll actually get my attention is with a sexy lady, and as the industry's kowtowing to political correctness has caused them to divest themselves of that particular tool, the advertisers, "they get nothing."
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Similarly to Germany's ban on billboards on the autobahn - which are proven to distract a driver's attention - there should be some reasonable limits on ads. I originally signed up for cable, then satellite, because so many of the channels were then ad-free. Today, there is virtually nothing that's ad-free, including my Camry's radio start-up message that reminds me that - yes! - I'm driving a Camry! Basically, I am sick and freaking tired of ads everywhere and have fine-tuned my life to avoid them as much as possible. But, man is it tough!!
Some advertising is OK. The type that tells you what it is, where to get it, and what it costs is OK. Naturally, they think theirs is the best.
Then there's the obnoxious commercials. The ones that throw in gratuitous doorbells and filter the audio until it sounds like you're delirious so they can push the volume up while technically (just barely) staying within guidelines.
Beyond that, there's the constant attempt to transfer your feelings for everything good to their product. They actually want to intrude on cherished childhood memories for their benefit. Make no mistake, it's no accident, they hire a bunch of psychologists to help them.
The worst is advertising to kids. A committee of grown-ups with doctorates ganging up on a child to give them the wrong impression without saying anything legally actionable in order to get them to pester their parents.
As for brands, they've got to be kidding. It's been a very long time since brands were anything but a well known name stuck on some Chinese no-name product bought from a random manufacturer.
Among the top five regrets of the dying are "I wish I hadn't worked so hard" and "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends" - not "I wish I spent more time engaging with brands on social media and reading up on the 24 hour news cycle"
Advertising appeals to the temporary, short term interest, and in doing so robs people of the time to pursue long term goals that actually make them happy and fulfilled - like spending time with family, acquiring new skills, or working to improve the lives of others. It's called hyperbolic discounting, and it's the reason most people procrastinate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Kill yourselves.
Seriously, no, this isn't a joke. If you aren't advertising a truly new product or service (this is maybe 0.1% of advertising), you are filling the world with bile and garbage.
Nice that we get "free" ad-supported stuff in the meantime, but holy fuck do we (as a society) pay for it.
Radio and TV are artificially expensive. The only reason they require ads or donor support is because the government has set up a completely unnecessary series of extremely high financial walls that must be leapt.
I could set you up a perfectly good AM or FM or television broadcast station for about $100, including a pretty good antenna sufficient for very broad local reach, say 30 miles or so. For a bit more, we can up the power and antenna significantly, and that's the end of your expenses. You can put up a pretty good tower for not much money too, if that's your inclination, and that will increase your range. I have a couple very nice towers myself, as well as one made out of 6X6 lumber that cost me all of about $100 to build (and really, since it's part of the support structure of my home's deck, half that cost would have been spent anyway. Huge antenna on top. :) No ads required to support all this, you can do it out of a cookie jar. 100 watts will get you an amazing amount of coverage, particularly if you're on a frequency no one else nearby is on (we have two stations here. The rest of the bands are completely dead during the day, AM comes alive at night, but you'd still reach the local listeners over those signals if you could set up a 100 watt station.)
But figure in the cost of FCC approved (laughable) equipment and FCC-approved towers and radiation patterns and location limitations and lawyers and licenses and so forth... ok, now you need funding. And a lot of it, too.
Or, create expensive content, again, now you need funding. But that would be a choice.
But radio and TV would be just fine without advertisers. Content would almost certainly change. Likely much for the better, IMHO. Competition would flourish: For instance, instead of the locals only having the option to listen to religious programming, there would be atheist stations (just as there are atheist websites... low cost of entry is required when there isn't a big organization pushing from behind the scenes.) Kids would have other influences other than those pushing mythology. There would be left-wing and right-wing and wingless stations. Sports stations and drama stations. Those who create their own content would flourish.
But you're not going to get that. No, you're going to get clear channel and Fox and etc. churning your ears and/or eyes with a very, very limited selection of programming that they want you to be exposed to, and very little else.
And the people who buy the argument that stations might interfere with each other, therefore we need all of the above impositions... they'll see to it that this will not change. It's a perfect situation under which to create and maintain a robust propaganda machine. And no surprise, that's precisely what we ended up with.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
To paraphrase Bobby Hill, "What was YouTube supposed to do? NOT monetize the hospitalized baby?"
And the people who run Slashdot should defend themselves.
"I don't pay any attention to advertising at all unless I am proactively seeking a product in a store"
That's just the thing. You think you aren't, but you are, you're just not aware of it at a conscious level. And that is advertising's ultimate goal -- subconscious suggestion. It's an art form really. You've probably made thousands of decisions that have been very subtly manipulated by corporations, without you ever even knowing. IMO that is the reason why advertising is morally reprehensible. It's manipulative mass mind control.
In all seriousness, I do not use ad blockers, and I have the "disable advertising" off, although it is offered to me. I view my use of a web site and their ads the same way as walking into a restaurant and paying for the meal. They are putting content into a rectangle, and if I like the content, I will return. Some smaller groups provide free food or community supported food (heck, I do that on Wednesday game nights at my home), and some smaller sites provide free content. But in general, it's part of the assumption. If the cost is too high (too many ads, or even one that makes any kind of noise), I don't go back.
I do, however, block the hell out of popups. The agreement is a page of content. You don't get further access to my desktop unless and until I agree.
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
If you don't want to see ads, don't use ad-supported services. They are called "ad supported" because your attention is what you use to pay with for those services. There are plenty of ad-free for-pay services if you want to. They are generally not as good because they are not as popular, but that's the choice most people make; live with it.
Unfortunately I am inclined to agree with this. Like the post you are responding to I try to ignore the ads and block a lot when I can. I still find sometimes when I want something and think of a brand to later realise it is a brand I saw from advertising. Same with product placement in stores.
Modern marketing techniques are designed for people like you. They're specifically made for people who don't pay attention to ads.
Nobody who lives in any community more dense than the human population of Kobuk Valley National Park is immune from the impact of modern marketing techniques. And I find it's the people who believe they are immune from advertising who are least prepared to defend themselves from its effects.
Wow, is that really what you think?
https://www.google.com/search?...
Then how the fuck would you know about the "industry's kowtowing to political correctness" causing them to divest themselves of sexy women in ads? Were you lying then or are you lying now?
Did you even know that Ridged Tools still publishes it's calendar of sexy ladies every year? Sports Illustrated still makes with the camel toe every February. I just watched a few minutes of the British Open on CBS and there was an ad for Mercedes with an entire line of supermodels in skimpy outfits.
Friend, instead of imagining what the "PC Police" are doing to your eye-candy, you might want to take some time out to evaluate your strategy for "ignoring" advertising, because the people who are involved with modern advertising techniques are smarter than you and me and Neil Degrasse Tyson when it comes to getting people who "don't watch broadcast TV" to respond to their campaigns. They know what they're doing and they know that it works.
You'd be better off accepting the effect that advertising is having on you, being aware of it, and actively subverting it. Adbusters is a good place to start. Otherwise, you'll still be reaching for the brand name and not knowing why.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But that sure as hell isn'twha is happening now.
Our web searches are "personalized"
The other day, I wanted to look up something on the Food Network on my wife's computer. So I googled The food network to get the right URL. The Godamned Food network site wasn't on the first page. Lots of ad, and those rotten aggregators poppesd up. DDG is her new search engine.
Adverstalkers pollute our screens with shit we've already looked at
One time I needed some tires, and went to TireRack.com. I needed to turn off scriptblock and adblock. SO far so good. I forgot to turn it back on, and the friggin' tires I looked ad were on the next ten pages I went to.
They waste bandwidth, make the web pages load a lot slower, and generally piss off people. Those bastards expect me to buy shit from them after that crap? That's like Jerry Sandusky expecting a Father's day card from those little boys he boned.
That's immoral and unethical.
So I use every means at my disposal to keep that shit away from my computer. Hosts and adblock and noscript at a bare minimum are called for.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I tend to go out of my way to make brand choices while shopping that I don't think I have seen advertising for.
I don't watch broadcast television, I don't read billboards, I completely ignore banners and side-column ads
Modern marketing techniques are designed for people like you. They're specifically made for people who don't pay attention to ads.
How exactly do the advertisers manage to design ads that will get through to GP who "doesn't watch broadcast television"? If GP doesn't see as many ads, he'll be less influenced by them, no?
I, like GP, don't tend to even notice ads off to the side. It's like my eyes are almost "allergic" to them. And your contention that they affect me significantly just doesn't seem to be borne out by how I actually purchase products. Do some of them have SOME subliminal effect? I'm sure. But nowhere near your wacko conspiracy theorist level of hysteria.
Then how the fuck would you know about the "industry's kowtowing to political correctness" causing them to divest themselves of sexy women in ads? Were you lying then or are you lying now?
Well, given that you produced a link that easily showed GP was WRONG, it's pretty clear that GP is probably ignorant because, well... he doesn't pay attention to ads and therefore he doesn't even know what the current trends are in advertising.
"Lying" implies intent to deceive. GP was simply mistaken... because he doesn't notice enough ads to even know what's going on in them. He speculated, on the basis of his knowledge of PC behavior -- but, as you point out, his speculation was wrong.
You'd be better off accepting the effect that advertising is having on you, being aware of it, and actively subverting it. Adbusters is a good place to start. Otherwise, you'll still be reaching for the brand name and not knowing why.
It's weird -- I don't even know the brand names for most products. Seriously. I don't. If I've never bought a product before, I have to go and research to even find out what the brand names ARE. Because I don't pay attention to ads.
Sure, when I was a kid, and I watched broadcast TV, I saw lots of ads. I still remember many of those jingles, and I know those brands -- because I watched those ads. Today, I have no clue what movies are playing in theaters. I have no clue what brand names exist for product classes I haven't bought before. I have no idea what most popular beers or cars or whatever even look like... unless I've specifically researched them before a car purchase or whatever. And even if I did see an ad, I'm usually LESS likely to buy something heavily advertised, since I like to support variety and unusual product choices -- as long as they are quality -- rather than shelling out money to the "default" corporate overlord in a particular sector.
So, I think your rant is demonstrably false at least for some people. Again, I'm sure there are SOME minor unconscious effects for some ads that are flashing off to the side on a website or something... but since I use ad blockers, I never see most of them (just like I don't see commercials since I don't watch broadcast TV). And if I probably see only maybe 1 or 2% of the ads that most people see, I'm pretty certain that the advertisers aren't somehow magically able to affect me as much as they affect most people....
You're right about the TV. We have one. We've never connected an antenna to it, and we don't have cable. But it's never been 'cool' to talk much about 'not watching television,' in fact they've managed to turn it into a meme and a point of ridicule to poke fun at people who say they don't watch television.
You get access to expensive content or services for free. The alternative would be to make you pay but to make money, you (usually) need to work, and work requires your attention. Either way, you are exchanging attention for a service.
Advertising is ubiquitous and advertisers figured out a long time ago that you don't need someone's full attention to influence behavior.
Forget websites. Forget television. You are affected by ads when you drive down the street or watching your kids playing a sporting event.
I'm telling you, if you scratch the surface of someone who claims to be completely unaffected by advertising, you're going to find someone who's making a lot more subconscious purchasing decisions than you would expect.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"I don't pay any attention to advertising at all unless I am proactively seeking a product in a store"
That's just the thing. You think you aren't, but you are, you're just not aware of it at a conscious level.
While this is true, one still needs to actually encounter ads to be influenced by them. I think many people on Slashdot who "don't pay any attention to advertising at all" aren't just people who say they don't watch commercials or look at the flashing ads on the side of a website -- they actually don't watch broadcast TV at all and run ad blockers that filter out 99% of ads.
I really have little clue what the "popular brands" are for most items, because I simply don't see much advertising at all.... not that I "see it but don't look at it" but I actually, literally do NOT see it because those ads are never within viewing range of me. For example, I have no clue what movies are playing in theaters now -- and I haven't really had a clue for the past decade or more since I stopped watching all broadcast TV. I'm not going to be "subconsciously" influenced to go see some popular movie when I don't ever see an ad for it and thus don't even know it exists. I only know about movies when I periodically decide to see what's playing and go to a site specifically devoted to current movie reviews.
So, "subconscious suggestion" isn't really as effective for at least some of the extremists on Slashdot. And even if it is, my general policy when looking for a purchase is to either go for a generic cheaper brand (if quality is basically equal for such products) or to look more closely at brands I haven't heard of before, because I recognize there is generally more variety (and variance in quality) in product classes to be seen outside the dominant corporate overlords.
I recognize that most people aren't like me. But that doesn't mean that your argument magically applies to people who don't even come in contact with most ads... and who are deliberately contrarian in purchasing. (My general opinion of modern corporate culture is that advertising often rewards products which satisfy the lowest common denominator, rather than the best quality products. The more familiar a brand sounds to me, the more suspicious I am that it's overpriced for its quality. That doesn't mean I reject it outright, but I'll often try out the generic or unknown product before settling on the brand.)
philosopher Thomas Wells is out to change the way you think about Google and its ilk.
Not really, no. He's just saying what I've been thinking (and saying, but since I'm not a reknown philosopher, few listen) for many years.
If you know anything at all about the mind and the brain, you understand that attention isn't free. That even "filtering out" advertisement (and we don't really, we just consume it unconsciously) takes up valuable mind-effort. That living in a city is stressful in parts because our brains are constantly busy, busy, busy with the environment, running a million-year-old program that constantly scans the area for potential threats or mates, and advertisement intentionally triggers those subroutines all the time (why do you think "sex sells"?).
Advertisement is a massive drain of resources, and the best thing I've ever done for myself was to throw out my television and stop listening to the radio. At least the inside of my home is mostly ad-free.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Ads are not designed to inform they are specifically designed to psychologically manipulate the individual and work best with repetition. So the question boils down to whether or no people or company can use any platform to actively psychological manipulate them against their own interest and would should be the legal liability when they manipulation causes psychological harm, especially when targeted at minors. So ads should be restricted to the claim they make, they should only inform the public about the product or service with no embellishment, sort of like plain packaging.
Next up the idea of disingenuous advertisements, where all sorts of false claims and ideas are presented about products with regard to value (whether it is good value or you are being ripped off with inflated profit margins), quality of product (the quality is as claimed or implied), serviceability (whether it is as useful as claimed), durability and reliability (whether it will last well beyond the end of warranty of fail shortly there in after), fit for purpose (whether if can do what it claims it can do). Beyond that the whole marketing chain should be liable for false claims, those who pay for the advertisements, those who show the advertisements and those who produce the advertisements. Special note and penalties should apply to those who show the advertisements for profit, they are promoting the product for profit, hence they should be financially liable for falsities included in those advertisements.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Still, you only buy something if you believe it is worth the money. No ad holds a gun to your head and forces you to make a purchase. They only suggest that something is worth purchasing or that their brand is better than the competition... you ultimately make the decision what to buy, and most importantly, whether to buy it in the first place.
Modern advertising and PR learned quite a bit from the propaganda on both sides during WW2. It chooses music and images to elicit specific emotions such as feeling that something is missing in your life, or you're too fat, or that with this product people will like you. Have you noticed the recent uptick in television advertisements featuring veterans that have absolutely nothing to do with veterans?
"Oh thank God! She made it home in one piece, and her dog missed her so much. Now go buy whatever-the-fuck dogfood we're selling or you don't support our troops!"
Sure, there's no gun to your head. But the industry wouldn't spend billions of dollars doing it if it didn't increase sales. And every year they research new techniques to tug on your heartstrings or make you feel inadequate, and then they show you the product that will fill that void. Your mind is being programmed at every opportunity, and I believe you should have to opt in to it only if you want.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
I spent about five years in the late Nineties and early Noughties without a TV tuner. On and off we had cable TV then back to over-the-air when we realized that we had a hundred channels and nothing was worth watching, and while we watch some TV now it's nothing like it was at the peak. We use adblock and flashblock and I use noscript, and I'm occasionally surprised when other people talk about TV shows and ads that I've never seen. I probably hear more ads on the radio when I'm driving around or are out working in the shop than I see ads in any visual medium.
For relatively inexpensive stuff where quality is mostly consistent across multiple sources I let price and the experience of getting the product dictate where I shop; Costco wins out a lot of the time with that, and for more expensive purchases I end up doing a lot of homework before spending my money. Sometimes ads might influence me in that I learn of the very existence of a product because of them, but having eliminated most unnecessary convenience purchases it's a lot easier to reduce the effects of advertising on myself.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I agree with this. I pay no attention to ads myself.
As I am too busy dating all the hot chicks and single moms in my area. And that is all because I impress people with coupons for "stuff", I keep getting for special member access at local shops.
--whacky
I don't watch broadcast television, I don't read billboards, I completely ignore banners and side-column ads, I don't open mail that isn't from a lawyer, a utility or some faction of the government, and I neither care what people want to put in ads nor am I affected by said content.
I have a similar view, try to avoid unwanted solicitations at all opportunities, but I wouldn't pretend to believe that none of it gets through. Even if you personally live in a bubble, you are exposed indirectly by the people around you. eg I don't know who Channing Tatum is, wouldn't recognise him if I fell over him, I've never actively watched or listened to any Hollywood, Celeb or Gossip type media, and rarely watch Hollywood type movies. But for some reason I know his name. I assume he is a famous celebrity, because for some reason I overhear his name quite often. Same goes for most other "celebrities". I never expose myself to any of that stuff, yet my knowledge of them has seeped into my memory somehow. I don't even know how it happens, but it means there is a force at work that is far greater than you think.
Certainly. But that doesn't mean our actions cannot be influenced by others, especially when those influences are subtle or act on the subconscious.
Were you replying to someone else? I wasn't calling for state action or regulation.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
That may all be true, but it doesn't change the fact that I will not buy tampons any time soon (and if, the female wanting them will probably already tell me what brand to get her). I will not buy a new car any time soon. And for most of my actual shopping needs, it's the store brand that will win the battle for "which detergent is it gonna be?"
So while that $brand potato chips ad will probably succeed in me wanting chips, it has a rather low chance of me buying $brand chips.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If it's your right to shove advertising in my face, it's my right to punch your nose for being an obnoxious asshole. Deal?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Joe Jackson said it: "If you think you're immune, then I can sell you anything!"
Violence is a basic instinct in animal nature too.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Without looking at it, how can you figure out it is an advertisement or a caution / direction sign / legal announcement / public service announcement? You cannot.
Once you do look at it and it turns out to be an advertisement, you can continue your earlier thought process but your attention has been stolen from you, however little you value it.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Not often these days does something like this manage to offend me to the core, but that article really got my goat. It is a masterpiece sure, well written even. But it is constructed to lead you down a narrow garden path of thinking and reason you into a little corner from which you the conclude you are somehow under attack and only way through is to keep on the path. I left the path half-way, trampled a bit of shrubbery and climbed a tree to look down on this weird thing. I saw an ancient tactic for Manufacturing Consent,
1. Begin by manufacturing and presenting an "oppressor/victim scenario".
2. Attempt to convince reader that they are in this "victim" group.
3. Present a view that does not ascribe any Free Will or choice to the "victim group".
4. In this tactical reasoning the only "Free Will" is possessed by the oppressor, who is using it for "evil".
5. Further elevate this aggressor scenario by claiming some natural right not to be "victimized".
6. This gives reader an ego massage. They are no longer a "victim", merely "concerned about the Rights of Others"
7. Choose a base motive you think would be most contemptible to your audience and ascribe it to the oppressor.
8. Once the argument is under way, focus entirely on oppressor's actions. Steer away from victims' actions or choices.
9. Congratulations! You are mustering a troll army to become a self-described "Moral Majority".
10. When it distills into a Cause, it need not be morally defensible or even comprise a majority.
So you are this poor defenseless human being, right? You are foraging on the green fields of Internet, picking out the choice clover that sprouts there. You are a sheep that Will Safely Graze in the pasture of human endeavor and will thrive happily unless your most precious possession --- your attention --- is stolen from you by those with Corporate Interest in mind. You have no Free Will in the matter. The rectangle that is your Facebook Page is being infringed upon by Advertising. Your personal information and patterns of behavior, which you supply of your own free will, is being stolen by others.
If you are lucky you've been raised by parents who would Laugh Out Loud at this kind of argument, and you inherently recognize and fix on the part of the argument that is most tenuous and contrived. Like since when do people have some sort of right not to be distracted in public places?
Advertising -- and even PR and Propaganda-- is applied in the world like any business model. Winor lose. Some of the models are stupid, some are clever. If you don't like what they're selling don't give them traction. And if you some day find yourself surrounded by a true-majority of people whose opinions you are uncomfortable with, you are left with the usual options: fight or flight.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Still, you only buy something if you believe it is worth the money. No ad holds a gun to your head and forces you to make a purchase. They only suggest that something is worth purchasing or that their brand is better than the competition... you ultimately make the decision what to buy, and most importantly, whether to buy it in the first place.
Very few consumers are rational. Pet rocks were an actual thing. People buy stuff because they think it's worth the money, or because they think everyone else has one, or because they're bored.
Have you ever seen a kid when ice cream truck music starts playing? Those kids don't want a popsicle from the freezer - they want the exact same popsicle from the ice cream truck at three times the price. Adults get a little better at suppressing that kind of irrational act, but we're still susceptible to it. Even people who believe they make purchases only after coldly tabulating the marginal enjoyment of one more M&M against the penny it costs.
If you're so against ads why do you advertise Soylent News in your sig?
-- Cheers!
So? Doesn't matter who they are designed for. What matters is if they work on me. They don't.
Yes, I live in a very rural area, and further, I keep to my own property as much as possible and have done so for just a little short of thirty years now.
What you have "found" about W, X and Y doesn't mean that you will find the same about Z. You're falling into the trap of assuming everyone is gullible to the degree you are arguing, based on the evidence that that a lot of people are.
Consider for a moment why we have atheists and skeptics as well as the religious. The social pressure to "be" religious, at least here in the US, is considerable. Yet atheists don't buy in. If everyone is equally affected by propaganda and the various levels of social influence, how then can atheism and skepticism exist? It is quite clear that some people tend to follow the narratives they are presented with, while others tend to not do so. Denying that -- which is essentially what you are doing -- is a bankrupt POV, and appropriately enough, I find it insufficient to your argument, which is to say I am quite skeptical that you understand the issue you're so passionately trying to describe.
I looked at your search, and it made me laugh. Yes, that's precisely what I think. That stuff is almost entirely G-rated pap; not sexy at all. with the exception of one image that came up showing a very good-looking woman in stockings and garters, the rest left me cold. And that image, or anything like it, isn't going to appear in product advertisements for those things which I am interested in buying. So yes, sex is not being used in by far the majority of all advertising -- even if it would then work on me, which I assure you, it would not. I am well aware that I am not the actor (and they are actors) in the fictional situation presented by ads. Not only does the fictional depiction not represent my life or lifestyle, the actual ad itself is constructed of illusion -- actors, scripts, etc. To me, this is wholly obvious. To you, apparently not. The error you're making here is assuming others are like you. As per the bard, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. "
Also: When I say sex, I mean sex. I don't mean bikinis or pretty faces. When I say "sexy", I mean, sex is used to sell the product. The amount of advertising for which that is the case is miniscule. Even when it occurs, and I am exposed, and the sex gets me to look, it won't get me to buy. I am not them; they are not me; the depiction is fiction, or in the even rarer case where it might not be, I am still not them, nor do I have any urge to be them.
Primarily, I am aware of the current state of affairs because relevant material is discussed quite often in the communities that I frequent, including this one. How many articles and associated commentary have you seen here that delve into issues like "booth babes" and "objectifying women" and the argument that physical beauty is a justifiably monetized resource just as athleticism and intelligence are -- and so on -- just
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.