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Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

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Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#221

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

comex wrote: post #160
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curtis must have missed the Victorian periodicals that are full of Type 2 ads. See e.g. http://christinetrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/cigs-10... http://christinetrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/pills.j... http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/0... Industrial printed advertising started in the early 19th century with the first stirrings of printed mass media. But flyers and noticeboards…

The first two ads seem pretty Type 1 to me: they mostly consist of text straightforwardly describing what the product supposedly does, except for a smallish image in the first one. The descriptions are incorrect (cigarettes are not safe, and whatever was in those pills was certainly not as efficacious as the ad claims), but that’s basically an orthogonal issue. On the other hand, your third example is definitely Type…

I see Type 1 as essentially honest and realistic, and Type 2 as essentially dishonest and unrealistic - the implication of non-existent benefits and lifestyle enhancements in a misleading way.

The presence of pretty women is a popular way to dramatise the "benefits", but it's not obligatory.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#222

Post by [deleted] »

tim333 wrote: post #187
undershirt wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A game indeed. Our investments only grow as a direct exploit of the very “pollution” we try to avoid. As debt increases exponentially, so must consumption to cover it. So we shield ourselves and invest—because the game has winners, and it has losers.

People would still spend money and companies still grow even if you banned advertising. I still quite like having housing, good food, travel and so on even if I haven't seen adverts for those recently.

[deleted]

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#223

Post by cm2012 »

nemo wrote: post #175
cm2012 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the "inventor" of public relations, Edward Bernays, illustrates my point really well. He claimed credit for getting women to smoke with his PR stunts. The data shows that the trend of women smoking started years before he did anything, and the trendline was completely unaffected when he did his stuff. He, at best, got people already smoking to switch to the brand of cigarettes he promoted.

I feel like the data might not be a slam dunk for your case at all. Bernays started his "Torches of Freedom" PR campaign in 1929. The rate of women smoking actually dropped dramatically soon after thanks to the Great Depression. Once the Depression was over, the trend line does not appear to be unaffected, though the reasons it trended as it did aren't simple to attribute. Cigarette companies were already advertising…

Our disagreement shows the issue with correlation studies. People will interpret them to say whatever conclusion they wanted, reducing the scientific value to nil.

If the OP study found the opposite, it wouldn't have made it to the top of HN, and if it did, every comment would mock it for using correlation and would be pointing out other explanations.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#224

Post by FabHK »

return1 wrote: post #205
FabHK wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rape and murder are parts of human nature, too. Still inherently unethical.

you think communicating with you is unethical?

I'm objecting to the argument that things that are natural are, therefore, good (the "appeal to nature" fallacy).

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#225

Post by JohnFen »

teawrecks wrote: post #85
jandrese wrote: post #4

Isn't this what you would expect? Advertising fundamentally is trying to convince you that you need something. If you're perfectly happy with your current situation then what else would you need? So the advertising has to convince you that you're not happy but that there is a product that you can buy that will increase your happiness. You're basically being negged by advertisers.

I think advertising is to marketing as space travel is to rocket science. An ideal situation for space travel is to be able to teleport anything anywhere, but that's not possible yet, so they build rockets to travel as fast as currently possible. Similarly, an ideal situation for advertising is to read each person's mind, determine exactly what products they are looking for but aren't yet aware of, and make them awar…

> Similarly, an ideal situation for advertising is to read each person's mind, determine exactly what products they are looking for but aren't yet aware of, and make them aware.

If marketers had that power, that's not how they'd use it. Instead, what they'd do is deploy a powerful analytic system to determine what your touch points are, in order to learn how to more effectively manipulate you to make you want whatever it is they happen to be selling.

Or, to use currently fashionable marketer-speak, they'd use it to move you through the funnel more efficiently.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#226

Post by DoreenMichele »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #211
DoreenMichele wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a copywriter in the sense of "person who writes adverts," but I am someone who writes copy for website content. One of the problems is that it isn't even good communication to say (for example) "This device has a 7 inch screen." That's mostly useless information for most people. It's much more genuinely helpful to tell people something like "You can easily read our large screen even in bright sunlight." Most…

I don't see why it's hard to see the line. Real benefits are real. If Gadget X is easy to read and light, it's easy to read and light. Imaginary benefits are imaginary. If you buy Gadget X you will not instantly become attractive to the opposite sex, nor will you be the envy of your friends. The line is where you shift the emphasis from real benefits to imaginary social, emotional psychological, and sexual - i.e. lif…

There is no clear dividing line because lifestyle enhancement isn't imaginary. If you brush your teeth, dress well etc, it actually does improve your sex appeal. So does being able to signal a good income by having certain goods, like a nice car.

Homeless men (granted, an extreme example) aren't seeing a lot of action. From what I gather, not owning a car as a man in the US is a serious barrier to having a romantic life. Etc.

Sure, some things are pretty ridiculous. But lifestyle enhancements that impact your love life are not simply imaginary. They can be quite real and tangible.

That's part of why it is tricky. If studies show owning a nice car helps a man's love life, is it outright lying to imply the connection by having some gorgeous woman lay across the hood of the car you are promoting?

That connection is not purely made up, though it may well be an exaggeration in some sense.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#227

Post by JohnFen »

conanbatt wrote: post #100
jandrese wrote: post #4

Isn't this what you would expect? Advertising fundamentally is trying to convince you that you need something. If you're perfectly happy with your current situation then what else would you need? So the advertising has to convince you that you're not happy but that there is a product that you can buy that will increase your happiness. You're basically being negged by advertisers.

Humans enjoy things more based on their subjective interpretation of it. Advertising makes you enjoy things more.

I am not willing to let others tell me what to think and feel. Particularly not advertisers, who don't have my best interest at heart.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#228

Post by inetknght »

codeulike wrote: post #84

When I lived in London, I often wondered what it would be like if the adverts that covered the underground and streets were replaced by pictures drawn by children.

That actually sounds like a pretty damn awesome suggestion.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#229

Post by jniedrauer »

ellius wrote: post #215
maxaf wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend no time managing expectations because my child isn’t exposed to advertising. There is no TV or social media in our household, and no ads thanks to multiple overlapping ad blocking solutions. There’s advertising outside, but it’s easy to ignore, and usually contains messages relating to things my daughter has no baseline for. For example, she doesn’t care about some billboard advertising a TV show because... y…

I tried to think of a counterargument to this and drew an almost total blank. There have been some great works of art over say the last 20 years or so—"Breaking Bad," "The Sopranos," and the like—but it's almost completely trash. I can't name more than a half-dozen things I'd have missed if I had thrown out my television and deleted Facebook etc.

I've spent most of my self aware life so far online. I don't want to be one of those "phones are bad" people who are scared by technology they don't understand. But I'm starting to change my mind.

Recently while waiting to board a plane, I saw a kid browsing instagram. The speed at which they were consuming content actually shocked me. They were rapidfire scrolling through pages and pages of the same kind of junk that's been in tabloids for decades. ~5 pictures a second. For half an hour, almost non-stop. I'm not sure why, but it really stuck out as deeply unsettling to me. I can't imagine that being healthy.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#230

Post by cm2012 »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #157
okr wrote: post #102

I remember developing an App. And then we have talked about, how can we be seen. And then all my grudges on advertising disappeared. Thank god, that it exists.

Probably your app is not that special then. You know: build it, and they’ll come.* * If it’s worth it.

Definitely not. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20034730.
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