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Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

jacek.zlydach.pl

51–60 of 657 posts

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were to take away all of the coke tomorrow, the first thing I'd spend all that extra money (and more!) on would be to try to invent a new cola.

Why? They're a net negative to society (soft drinks themselves, that is)

Couldn't the same be said of any luxury?

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#53
post #23

He doesn't quite say it by name, but most advertising is a classic arms race. Especially given how the internet now makes information easily available, a great deal of advertising is about manipulating consumers to pick company A's products over those from competitors B, C, and D. This forces those other companies to spend to get and keep customers. It's pure waste. For example, everybody on the planet is now familia…

If you were to take away all of the coke tomorrow, the first thing I'd spend all that extra money (and more!) on would be to try to invent a new cola.

[deleted]

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#54
post #22

If you stop watching ads for awhile and go back to it you’ll see how mind numbing it all really is. I aggressively block ads - no exceptions.

I went and visited my parents who still have cable. I sat and watched for a little while and was dumbstruck by the ads every few minutes. It was unbearable. I don't know how anyone can deal with it unless you don't know better

We were at a rented condo and my 6 year old told me that paw patrol was broken, she said it kept stopping and starting. I had to go watch it with her before realizing she was talking about advertisements. She had never seen advertisements before (having only ever watched shows like paw patrol on DVDs checked out from the library) and didn't understand what was going on. It was really eye opening for me.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#55
Anyone know the old Bill Hicks joke? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Mn2NbjlqU I think advertising is part of the human condition. Once people want something, they tend to change how they relate the facts to better fit their self interest. I see this as an evolution-created short cut. So, while it is valuable to recognize it, demonizing it may not turn out to be that useful. Instead, if we take that advertising is as inevitable a phenomena as language, we can try to avoid its pitfalls as consumers and producers.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#56
post #23

He doesn't quite say it by name, but most advertising is a classic arms race. Especially given how the internet now makes information easily available, a great deal of advertising is about manipulating consumers to pick company A's products over those from competitors B, C, and D. This forces those other companies to spend to get and keep customers. It's pure waste. For example, everybody on the planet is now familia…

> For example, everybody on the planet is now familiar with soft drinks. If anybody has never tasted Coke, it's not by accident. But Coke's ad budget is enormous. If all soft drink companies stopped advertising tomorrow, society would not be worse off. And we'd have billions of dollars [1] to spend on something useful.

Not that I disagree, but where do you draw the line? Sure, if Coke stopped advertising we'd have billions of dollars to spend on something "useful". On the other hand, if Coke stopped making soft drinks, we'd have billions of dollars to spend on something "useful" AND significantly decreased obesity.

If you are going to make the argument that having soft drinks improves life somehow, then that implies it's better for people to know about soft drinks, and how will they know? Advertising.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#57
post #23

He doesn't quite say it by name, but most advertising is a classic arms race. Especially given how the internet now makes information easily available, a great deal of advertising is about manipulating consumers to pick company A's products over those from competitors B, C, and D. This forces those other companies to spend to get and keep customers. It's pure waste. For example, everybody on the planet is now familia…

I didn't use the term "arms race", but I tried to communicate this point in few places, calling out the zero-sum and negative-sum properties of advertising, and the waste it creates. I'll update the post later on to make the arms race aspect more visible.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#58
post #23

He doesn't quite say it by name, but most advertising is a classic arms race. Especially given how the internet now makes information easily available, a great deal of advertising is about manipulating consumers to pick company A's products over those from competitors B, C, and D. This forces those other companies to spend to get and keep customers. It's pure waste. For example, everybody on the planet is now familia…

I constantly think about how the world would look if even a fraction of the people doing creative for ads were free to be creative elsewhere.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#59

Anyone else find the user of 'cancer' in these terms to be frustrating? Having had to experience the pain of people I care about having cancer, it immediately just makes me feel like shit. I guess maybe I'm just sensitive...

I've had cancer, and I've had people close to me die of cancer, so I can see where you're coming from. Even the mention of it would freak me out - I remember when my mom was dying of cancer, and I was being treated for it, watching an episode of Stargate to escape from it - and one of the characters in the episode was dying of cancer - so much for escape!

But, then again, somethings really are as virulent and aggressive as cancer, and I'm ok with them being compared to it. I'm fine with the (needed, imo) reaction.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#60

Anyone else find the user of 'cancer' in these terms to be frustrating? Having had to experience the pain of people I care about having cancer, it immediately just makes me feel like shit. I guess maybe I'm just sensitive...

Totally a valid concern and this usage should probably be limited or eradicated. However, I think there is some legitimacy to it in this case considering how negative of an impact ads can have on lives.

In other words, it's obviously figurative, but not necessarily (meant as) hyperbole.

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