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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

#261

Post by undershirt »

crispinb wrote: post #185
sesteel wrote: post #66

I view advertising as a form of pollution. In many cases, it erodes the human experience. It is abusive to families with children creating strife where there was none. I spend a lot of time managing expectations and sharing philosophical ideas, like "less is more". I don't mind teaching my children, but I don't like feeling people are trying to take advantage of us all the time. I explain it to them as if it is a gam…

> I view advertising as a form of pollution Quite. If (which is now for obvious reasons somewhat unlikely) our global civilisation manque struggles on for another century, it will look back on the overconsumption propaganda industry very much like we now see slavery. Ogilvy, Saatchi et al are the Goebbels' of our age.

I would drink with you

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

#262

Post by plankers »

krustyburger wrote: post #254
Iv wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to add that advertising is also economic pollution that goes against free competition. The theory behind free markets requires that voters are more or less rational and well informed. That they will never spend more on an inferior product. Advertisement distorts that. I suspect that banning advertisement altogether would make the economy gain a lot in terms of market efficiency. Can you imagine a world where…

Where would you draw the line? How would producers expect for consumers to find their product? Would consumers be allowed to recommend products to each other? What about design and product packaging? Isn't that essentially a form of advertising?

>Where would you draw the line?

At paying platforms to advertise your product.

>How would producers expect for consumers to find their product?

How about typing "insert product here" into a search engine?

>Would consumers be allowed to recommend products to each other?

Yes, as long as there is nothing of value changing hands.

>What about design and product packaging?

Fine, as long it ends at the store shelf/online product-listing.

Take my suggestions with a grain of salt, because they come from a person who ranks advertising as one of the top three problems facing humanity.

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

#263

Post by bobbygoodlatte »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #86
enlyth wrote: post #15

To me, it is worrying how much human effort we're investing into advertising as a whole. The top minds of our generations, backed by billions of dollars in funding, are working on increasingly manipulative ways to capture people's attention and use it to generate profit. We're constantly getting better at it; who knows what path this will lead us down. I suspect it might not be the one we had wished for.

Here's the reason they keep doing-- It works. Stop rewarding it and they'll stop. I actually think a large number of societal issues today are stemming from people's inability to think rationally for themselves. Things like fake news, being vulnerable to advertising, taking bad deals like minimum wage etc. If someone were able to think rationally and into the future to figure out, "4 years from now if I choose this […

This is good advice for an individual and relatively useless advice when given to society as a whole. Yes, people should think for themselves. If you have kids you might even be able to teach them how to think for themselves.

But at scale, at the level of a population, an expectation of individual rationality loses out to the realities of these manipulative techniques. On an individual level they might not work, but on a population level they tend to work.

If a population is being manipulated by political propaganda, then yes it's good advice to an individual to think critically / rationally. But that only affects change on the tiniest margin. The propagandists will still win overall.

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

#264

Post by conanbatt »

jandrese wrote: post #107
conanbatt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's a bold claim. Can you elaborate on it some more? I'm not sure how the advertising is helping our interpretation in this case.

It's a fairly established finding of social science that associations change your appreciation.

By pre-configuring your initial reaction or associating it with something positive you feel actually better about it. There are plenty of documented examples of this:

Patients being told that they are switched from a brand drug to a generic one report worse results, or the mere increase in the price tag of a drug increases placebo effects.

Its a completely different experience to drink a coke from an official can, than to drink it from a silver-slated can and being told "it is cola".

And lets not even get into politics! Basically the game of changing how people react to moral issues.

The person that believes ads and marketing have no effect on what they like simply doesn't understand himself.

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

#265

Post by phkahler »

sesteel wrote: post #218
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…

This brings up an interesting topic for discussion. I think there are several modes of parenting: hands off, protective, preparatory, etc. I think most parents try to balance these. I've taken the view that for most situations I want to prepare my children for the world they will face given what I know today, be hands off to see how they react, and only protect them as a last resort. While, some kids simply aren't re…

Most adults are not prepared to make that choice ;-)

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

#267

Post by Gibbon1 »

JohnFen wrote: post #189
rigorman wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Light side: Closing the loop between what the customer wants, what their actual problems are, and what engineering and manufacturing can deliver. >Marketing seems to have given up on that sort of effort years ago. Marketing hasn't, but companies' hiring and organizational structure decisions have - especially tech companies. As long as the only marketing personel a company hires are advertising personel, given auth…

> In tech, programmers are the "engineering and manufacturing", but they tend not to want to be told what consumers want by the marketing team This is true. In fact, I'm currently engaged in a bit of a battle over this very thing at my current employer (I'm a software dev). They're hiring a brand new marketing team, but all they've been hiring are salespeople, and I've been pushing them to be sure to include someone…

That is a good thing to push for because while they overlap Marketing != Sales. A good marketing person is absolutely worth it.

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

#268

Post by clevep »

This article misses by far the number one benefit of advertising: it makes products and services cheaper.

That notion obviously applies to the plethora of "free" (free in quotes because I am not trying to dodge the fact that you are always paying something) websites which everyone frequents, but goes beyond that as well.

There's a comment on here complaining about how Hulu shows ads despite the fact that they are paying for the service. Well, you can pay more and not see those ads, but you have made a conscious decision to pay less for the service, so you get to pay some of your attention instead.

Back to the article -- it claims that "a hypothetical doubling of advertising expenditure would result in a 3% drop in life satisfaction." What I would like to see is some analysis of how much life satisfaction is earned back if all relevant products become proportionately cheaper. Then we would be in position to figure out what the sweet spot for society is using a price:advertising ratio as a slider.

That would be very interesting and result in a more productive conversation.

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

#269

Post by ACow_Adonis »

teawrecks wrote: post #253
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except the goal of marketing is not inherently to meet a person's needs. At the macro level, it's maximising needs met, but at the micro level this is done by both initiating and implanting desires that otherwise aren't present or necessary, and by creating problems/pain points (which then, as a second order effect, create a need, which is met by the product). In economic terms, advertisers aim to maximise locally me…

Every single person responding to my comment is conflating advertising with marketing. They are not the same thing! Advertisers are putting customers in touch with marketers for products. Marketers are trying to convince those customers to buy the product. If the advertiser somehow magically knew a priori that nothing a marketer could say would change a given customer's mind, it's in everyone's best interest to not w…

well, firstly, no, under that definition, it's not in the advertiser's interest to get the marketers to stop spending money (that generates the advertiser's profits) even if its not doing anything.

secondly, if we take your definition (and call me crazy but if everyone in a conversation is using a certain definition I generally find it more amenable to participating in a conversation to adopt that definition), you've got it completely backwards.

Marketers use advertisers to get marketing into peoples heads. Advertisers exist to make money by meeting the needs and desires of marketers. Consumers are not, as a general rule, paying to see ads.

The idea that advertisers exist to try 'deduce peoples wants and then met them' and they're the ones just 'using marketing because they haven't found a better way' is so..., and I try to keep things civil here on Hacker news but can think of no other way to convey this thought..., naively stupid that it's borderline offensive and disrespectful to the people on the other side of the conversation.

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

#270

Post by cwkoss »

cm2012 wrote: post #121
anoncake wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand what I mean by "there is no trade-off". Those endeavours are only useful if and to the extent they create happiness. Also: Companies need ads to grow because their competitors also have ads. That doesn't mean they'd need ads in if ads didn't exist. The one legitimate purpose ads serve – could easily be served through other mechanisms, e.g. by the press. Maybe the press would have to expan…

Okay. So say you make an app that helps plumbers do their job well. If every plumber used it, plumber productivity would go up 50%, making life easier for all. It cost you years of your time and lots of money to make this great app, and you need a lot of plumbers to buy it to afford to continue working on it. There's a big plumber app on the market already, but yours is way better. How do you get plumbers to hear abo…

This is fallacious thinking. If you had an app that would increase plumber productivity by 50%, plumbers would be lining up to get into the Beta. Find any plumbing supplier or trade group, and if the effects are actually that good, they'll tell their members at no-charge because that knowledge would be a service to them. Plumbers would be cold-calling other plumbers trying to get a beta invite. All you need is a marginally competent sales person.

Advertising is a waste money for quality products, only makes sense for inferior ones.

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