21–30 of 140 posts
Amusingly enough, the JC Decaux trucks are entirely festooned with Australian flags, which is a totally conventional for a 100% French company to use as visual elements and not deceptive at all.
A general sentiment I see here is that ads should be banned, but what can be done in the US? The First Amendment protects truthful advertisements. In addition, we have the FTC for misleading and lying ads (although their success is not what it should be (case in point: OutBrain and Taboola)). So, what do we do? Further reading on the 1st Amendment and advertising: http://www.lawpublish.com/amend1.html https://en.wiki…
In my opinion, the solution is to clearly define a discrete set of spaces for ads and make sure everyone is able to compete on equal footing. It's not like these companies want to shell out more money for ads - they simply have to in order to compete.
EDIT: Also the US needs to adopt Britain's ban on election ads outside of the election month. We waste a phenomenal amount of time and money on election ads that provide zero real benefit to the US.
It's kind of an open secret that the city of Santa Barbara (CA, US) has banned several forms of public outdoor advertising: we have no billboards, no promotional posters, no taxi toppers... It's delightful, and very high on my list of reasons why I enjoy living here. Every time I leave I'm reminded how noisy space is when it's filled with advertisements. I wholeheartedly recommend others advocate for similar policies…
Billboards are banned in downtown Chicago, so big companies rent storefronts in tourist areas and put in stores that are not supposed to make money, just to be billboards for their brand.
The growth of the influencer model, advertorials/newsvertising, and individual personality as brand experience means that even if all public ads were banned, brands would just be paying thousands of micro-influencers for IRL mentions, tracked silently through the mic on your phone.
When you take the influencer thing to it's logical conclusion (everyone is a brand ambassador) then it becomes real murky real quick about what's an ad and what's just a person's opinion.
Banning ads would be nice, but that's already old thinking. The growth of the influencer model, advertorials/newsvertising, and individual personality as brand experience means that even if all public ads were banned, brands would just be paying thousands of micro-influencers for IRL mentions, tracked silently through the mic on your phone. When you take the influencer thing to it's logical conclusion (everyone is a…
Perhaps if the largest phone operating system vendor didn't have a financial incentive to weaken privacy, this would not be a problem.
I think in the near future we'll have empirical evidence that most ads are malicious exploits of flaws in human psychology. Ideally, all ads should be plain text listing of facts. Pictures only allowed for demonstrative purposes. And they should be listed in "Ad sections", like a phone book.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> plain text listing of facts Coca-Cola tastes great! Coca-Cola gives you an extra pep in your step! Coca-Cola will rot you teeth! These are all true statements (the first one is subjective, I'll admit), but I suspect that many believe the effect of plain test listing of facts would only allow the third statement. > Pictures only allowed for demonstrative purposes. Wouldn't a photo of someone drinking a Coke and enjo…
I agree with you. And I suspect 9 out of 10 doctors do as well. I want to neuter advertising more than anything, but I can't think of any kind of "rule" we could establish that would make public mind hacking illegal.
While all of those coca cola ads are "true", they would be limited in scope to places that coca cola owns. So no bus stations or taxi toppers or whatever, unless they buy a fleet of taxis.
A general sentiment I see here is that ads should be banned, but what can be done in the US? The First Amendment protects truthful advertisements. In addition, we have the FTC for misleading and lying ads (although their success is not what it should be (case in point: OutBrain and Taboola)). So, what do we do? Further reading on the 1st Amendment and advertising: http://www.lawpublish.com/amend1.html https://en.wiki…
Nobody wants ads banned. The problem is that ads are being placed into previously unused places and louder than before. The result is that all companies have to compete with these new obnoxious ads or risk falling behind their competitors that are willing to put ads in distasteful places. In my opinion, the solution is to clearly define a discrete set of spaces for ads and make sure everyone is able to compete on equ…
I want ads banned.
They provide nothing of value and exist only to sway people into buying your product - a lot of advertising isn't overtly malicious but it all exists dependent on an assumption that being told to buy a product is a more valuable use of a time than whatever else you're doing.
I suspect that being constantly bombarded with advertising has ill health effects by making it harder to find peace of mind and de-stress yourself, but that's just a gut feeling.
In Lyon the public ad space was traded to an ad company in exchange for funding and maintaining the city's public bike share scheme. It's a trade off, of course, but for just 30 euros à year I (and the rest of the city) get virtually unlimited bike share. The anti-ad groups here would be happy for the public ads to disappear but it would be a real shame if the affordable bike share went with it. FWIW there is a real…
They wouldn't buy the advertising if they couldn't make a profit on your attention. Pay with brain space, or pay through a tax. Which is more expensive?