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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

#461

Post by anoncake »

Nasrudith wrote: post #459
anoncake wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happiness is the one thing we should be optimizing for. 3% is not negligible if there is no trade-off.

I disagree - especially since optimizing for anything blindly/without constraints can lead to horrific outcomes. Optimizing for happiness would logically call for denying unpleasant truths because pointing them out would make people unhappy and downright inhumanities - if the depressed commit suicide it would drive up the average happiness. Even if given tighter constraints it would still have disturbing ignorance is…

> Optimizing for happiness would logically call for denying unpleasant truths because pointing them out would make people unhappy

Not if you take the long term into account. Denying unpleasant truth might make people happy -- though I don't think this works if your subconscious still knows the truth -- but then you cannot deal with the issue and it makes you unhappy.

> if the depressed commit suicide it would drive up the average happiness.

If someone's life is so unpleasant it isn't worth living and they cannot be treated, suicide isn't inhumane.

> Even if given tighter constraints it would still have disturbing ignorance is bliss promotion.

Something being disturbing doesn't mean it's actually bad. Reactionaries find homosexuality disturbing.

Do you have a reason for considering ignorance is bliss promotion disturbing aside from lack of familiarity?

> I disagree - especially since optimizing for anything blindly/without constraints can lead to horrific outcomes.

I don't think an outcome that makes people happy, including in the long run, can be horrific.

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

#462

Post by wastedhours »

jasode wrote: post #83
deogeo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One is "Hey, did you know this thing exists? Check it out! Here are all the tests it passed, realistic cost of ownership, and locations where it is in stock". I almost never see ads of type one - in fact, even finding that information is usually made accidentally or deliberately difficult.

>I almost never see ads of type one - Type 1 ads (if one relaxes the dry listing of specifications a bit) might be called "informational ads" ; Type 2 ads might be called "aspirational ads" . The informational ads are often found in hobby magazines. Interests like woodworking, electronics, airplane flying, fishing, guns, gardening, cooking, crafts, etc. Many readers enjoy looking at those type of ads to learn about n…

I agree with most of thing, but I also think it needs a little flavour as to "informational" vs "aspirational".

I agree with both of those, but would also classify the examples you gave below as the difference between "mass advertising" and "intent based advertising". TV ads vs AdWords essentially. One is to capture interest and change behaviours, the other is to sell to an audience who's already in the market for your product.

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

#463

Post by wastedhours »

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…

> 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 waste any resources on that customer.

I agree with the point, but not the rationale. The difference between advertising and marketing is simply a syllogistic fallacy.

All fat men are men, all men are human, therefore all humans are fat men.

All advertising is paid media, all paid media is marketing, therefore all marketing is advertising.

Marketing is a superset of actions that contains elements of direct advertising, paid influence (PR, influencers, "brand ambassadors", employee advocacy...), product development and market research, events and announcements, sales, and distribution.

I'm a marketer - my main job at the moment is advertising (which I hate, but am stuck), but it's not the only element to the role of a marketer.

You might conflate all of the above under "advertising", but even if you think it should all be burned to the ground, it's still helpful to segment is so you can choose the order in which you set it alight.

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

#464

Post by otabdeveloper1 »

raxxorrax wrote: post #451
otabdeveloper1 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising hasn't been about 'persuasion' or psychology for a long, long time. Advertising today is mechanical applications of the central limit theorem / law of large numbers to sociological problems.

Is that for reach and penetration and whom to target? Wouldn't know how I would apply that to ads.

I fail to grasp what you mean.

Reach, penetration and target audiences is like 95% of what modern advertising does.

Modern advertising works on simple statistics rules like "people who drink Pepsi might need heartburn medicine" or "people who recently bought home appliances might want to buy another one".

These things are simple applications of the CLT. No psychology or manipulation is needed or wanted.

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

#465

Post by nihalot »

ericdykstra wrote: post #341
seasoup wrote: post #20

I think they are missing the biggest issue with advertising, which is it incentivizes businesses to create things for the sole purpose of drawing their attention to the advertising. Truth is less important than shock value. Utility less important than appearance of utility. Extremist rhetoric gathers more eyeballs than moderate views. Advertising's biggest negative effects are in how it manipulates people into manipu…

I take a little bit of issue with Truth is less important than shock value , which implies that news media is selling out their content for profit. The vast majority of news outlets don't make enough in ad revenue to stay afloat, and rely on outside funding. The news itself is the propaganda. Carlos Slim didn't put $250 million into the New York Times out of charity, he did it to buy influence.

So hasn't NYT sold out for profit?

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

#466

Post by cm2012 »

anoncake wrote: post #402
cm2012 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not subscribing to plumbing magaxines just means the signal to noise ratio in them is bad. For the value part: What if plumbers use Facebook (which they do) and when they see your FB ad, they buy your product. Wouldnt that indicate they do care about your app?

If plumbers aren't satisfied with the signal to noise ratio of magazines they don't want to see ads either.

They still use FB even though they see ads there. And then convert when they see the Plumbing ad.

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

#467

Post by mtreis86 »

Mirioron wrote: post #387
JohnFen wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop rewarding it and they'll stop. Here's the thing... I'd taken quite a lot of advertising courses during my education, and among the many truly scary things that I learned in them, one stood out above all others: Knowing how advertising manipulates you, and even noticing it in the moment that it's happening, in no way makes it less effective. People who claim that they aren't affected by advertising are incorrec…

> Knowing how advertising manipulates you, and even noticing it in the moment that it's happening, in no way makes it less effective. People who claim that they aren't affected by advertising are incorrect. Is there any evidence for such a claim? I've heard people say this again and again, but I can't see how this is true based on myself. Sure, I've been guided to a product based on advertisement once in my life, but…

I go out of my way to avoid products whose corporations spend money on advertisements

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

#468

Post by dalore »

3xblah wrote: post #422
deepakkarki wrote: post #346

Folks in this thread may find this interesting, a 4 part documentary on Edward Bernays and the history of advertising and PR as we know it today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 From the video description - "The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's idea…

"PR" was invented by the military. I learned this from someone in PR who was trained in the service during WWII and then went on to work in the "public relations profession" as a civilian. I suspect the military trained Bernays. He may have invented the "profession", but he did not invent PR.

> "PR" was invented by the military.

That's a bold claim, with your only supporting evidence some anecdotal claim by some guy you knew who claimed it.

If you are refuting the article and making your own bold claim, surely you can offer more evidence then "some guy I know told me"

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

#469

Post by dalore »

coldtea wrote: post #442
analog31 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. I sometimes wonder if the people who are the true targets of advertising, made to want things they don't need, are the people who buy advertising.

Those people can also do A/B tests, and compare various methods of advertising. And they get their money's worth on customers (e.g. a promotional vlog by an a-lister can suddenly push millions worth of product). So probably not.

a/b tests only work for outcome based advertising. A lot (if not more) of the old world advertising isn't outcome based. It's more about make consumers hear your brand over and over and be associated with things that you think of them automatically.

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

#470

Post by homonculus1 »

ionised wrote: post #414
Mirioron wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are soda, highly processed food, and credit cards parasitic? They provide a service that people find very useful.

Just like heroin and hitmen.

Gee wiz, sugary drinks and hitmen. What similarities they share!

Seriously, this is total nonsense and it frustrates me to even read such a wild comparison.

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