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Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

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Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#291

Post by rchaud »

okdood64 wrote: post #202
xlii wrote: post #27

I think that nowadays industry flavored joke of “you either die a hero or live long enough to become…” should end with Google/Meta. What a dirtbags.

There's plenty of marketing targeted towards children outside of Big Tech. What's the difference when they do it?

TV, radio and newspaper ads are regulated by the FTC. Advertising on these mediums is limited (24 hours in a day, X number of pages in a paper) and illegal content can be easily tracked and archived, and prosecuted.

Big Tech serves an ungodly number of ads from all kinds of scrupulous and unscrupulous parties. Ad content is almost impossible to track and monitor. Big Tech says "let us self-regulate" while also saying "it's not possible to ensure thaf every single ad we serve complies with the law, we're doing our best".

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#292

Post by ndriscoll »

randomdata wrote: post #287
ndriscoll wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the example is that there are plenty of things that have no benefit at all, and in fact have obvious downsides that everyone knows about. However, there is an immense amount of marketing around those things to try to make them seem "cool" and minimize their perceived harm. People get addicted to these things, and struggle to stop consuming them even when they know they're literally dying from it. No one…

> No one in their right mind would ever give their kids Oreos for breakfast Assuming you are going to feed your children Oreos at some point, why not for breakfast? > Cookies are, in fact, not a part of a complete breakfast. They could be. If you are going to eat them anyway, why not at breakfast? > Evidently, you can convince people that they are by just repeating the message thousands of times to them. Evidently no…

> Evidently people don't pay attention to what is said and will go off and do their own thing.

It's almost like that was the intention. It's weird how the ad doesn't prominently show the eggs, beans, etc. and talk about how great they are, and instead focuses on how you can totally eat cookies for breakfast!

Here's an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnvHUXssIAo

"Not Candy! Resees Puffs cereal!"

It is candy. Like 1/3 of the mass is added sugar, and the other 2/3 is more carbs. And what's the complete breakfast that goes with it? Two slices of white-bread toast, a glass of milk, and a glass of juice. Even the "complete" breakfast is garbage. The bowl almost certainly has more than the 1 cup serving as well.

The purpose of this commercial is not to inform you about how to use their product as part of a healthy diet (because it isn't a part of a healthy diet). It is to turn your brain off and get you to buy something that you intuitively know is not appropriate. People received the intended message.

Even if they did show their product as a small side (rather than a centerpiece) of an otherwise healthy breakfast, it's still ridiculous to suggest that you should be giving your kids candy with any regularity.

My oldest kid is 3, and I don't think she has had an Oreo. Will she before she's 18? Probably. Has she had some other treats? Sure. But it's not at all a regular thing. It's certainly not part of a daily diet.

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#293

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

fragmede wrote: post #257
belter wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the stories here in the last two days, lots in HN are more worried with the location of Twitter headquarters...( Will never mention that letter...)

For all the speculation about the move, the reason is simple. Twitter is going to launch a payments system, San Francisco has a tax on gross receipts, which is so unfair to payments processing companies that several others - square, stripe, and block - moved out of SF to avoid paying that tax, and Twitter is simply following suite. it's too inside baseball for the average reader to follow, so we're left with baseless…

> we're left with baseless speculation and conspiracy theories on why they're moving

Sounds like Elon, so it's on-brand.

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#294

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

randomdata wrote: post #290
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if you do have concern about the way you are parenting, wouldn't you want to improve upon that? > Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that this Reframe is some miracle app that will truly do what you think it claims to. Reading this discussion, I remain unconvinced. Unless I lost the plot somewhere along the way (admittedly, that's a possibility), it sounds like the context is that of someone advertising…

> I remain unconvinced. Was there something we were supposed to convince you of? > what if the product in question was literally snake oil? Is that still justifiable as marketing because they're making a promise about it which someone wants to hear? The discussion is about advertising preying on insecurities, not marketing in general. If we assume snake oil were to be advertised, is there some reason to prefer: "Snak…

Because the advertisement inappropriately calls the product a solution to an unrelated problem. The manufacturer can demonstrate that it will eliminate my halitosis but not that it will get me laid. Using the initial example, I might be less addicted to alcohol but that doesn't necessarily make me a better parent; the advertisement sold me on being a better parent.

(I appreciate your questions. I had to think about that one.)

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#295

Post by [deleted] »

kelnos wrote: post #274
HDThoreaun wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont see how that is the case. How does one farmer using monsanto seeds mean another needs to as well? Each farmers seed choice has no effect on others choices. If the monsanto seeds cost more than they were worth farmers wouldnt use them. In fact saying that you need to use their seeds to be competitive makes it clear that you understand that the seeds are worth it, you just wish they were free or cheaper. But in…

My guess would be it's about pricing. Let's imagine a world where there are only two farms, mine and my neighbor's. We're both using regular seeds, and we do a decent job, but it's not wonderful, and some years our yield isn't so great. Then Monsanto comes along and wants to sell us a product that gives us better, more consistent yields, even better than our best harvests with the regular seeds. The catch, of course,…

[deleted]

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#296

Post by randomdata »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #294
randomdata wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remain unconvinced. Was there something we were supposed to convince you of? > what if the product in question was literally snake oil? Is that still justifiable as marketing because they're making a promise about it which someone wants to hear? The discussion is about advertising preying on insecurities, not marketing in general. If we assume snake oil were to be advertised, is there some reason to prefer: "Snak…

Because the advertisement inappropriately calls the product a solution to an unrelated problem. The manufacturer can demonstrate that it will eliminate my halitosis but not that it will get me laid. Using the initial example, I might be less addicted to alcohol but that doesn't necessarily make me a better parent; the advertisement sold me on being a better parent. (I appreciate your questions. I had to think about t…

> Because the advertisement inappropriately calls the product a solution to an unrelated problem.

Yes, but that is true in both cases. A miracle cure-all, if there were such a thing, would, indeed, solve your halitosis and girl troubles.

If I am to infer something here, it is that you didn't realize what a "cure-all" can do. It took more precise language to get you thinking about specific problems and how to solve them.

So, let's assume for a minute that snake oil is well and truly a magical cure-all. It seems that by the first ad you wouldn't recognize that fact and would end up not being able to benefit from is miracle properties. Perhaps the second ad would actually be preferable?

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#297

Post by codr7 »

comfysocks wrote: post #281
codr7 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but that isn't it at all, I'm afraid. It's much darker. The fact is that exactly the same people who are pushing the idea, are the ones who we would need protection from. And they're not innovating much, it's the same bs over and over and over again.

I don’t think the dynamic you are talking about has much to do with Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication. Perhaps a slightly reductive view, but I see “NVC” as basically saying that when people argue, emotions can sometimes overrule logic. When people get emotional, they sometimes plug their ears and start screaming into the void. NVC is then basically a bunch of tactics to circumvent the emotional aspect so that the…

I don't think eliminating emotions from human interaction is a very smart thing to do, and certainly not the only alternative to screaming into the void.

We're already at the point where we're almost not supposed to have emotions anymore, turning more into robots every day.

Every single aspect of being human is emotional, every single decision you make is emotional, no matter how hard you work to justify it mentally.

The idea is nice in theory, if it wasn't for all the humans involved it might actually work.

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#298

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

randomdata wrote: post #296
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the advertisement inappropriately calls the product a solution to an unrelated problem. The manufacturer can demonstrate that it will eliminate my halitosis but not that it will get me laid. Using the initial example, I might be less addicted to alcohol but that doesn't necessarily make me a better parent; the advertisement sold me on being a better parent. (I appreciate your questions. I had to think about t…

> Because the advertisement inappropriately calls the product a solution to an unrelated problem. Yes, but that is true in both cases. A miracle cure-all, if there were such a thing, would, indeed, solve your halitosis and girl troubles. If I am to infer something here, it is that you didn't realize what a "cure-all" can do. It took more precise language to get you thinking about specific problems and how to solve th…

> Yes, but that is true in both cases.

I think I can see where you're coming from with this but it's still not how I read it. The second advertisement is telling me that the product will cure my bad breath and therefore my girl problems but my girl problems are not necessarily related to my bad breath. It's the same as the drinking father example; a person's parenting can be good or bad irrespective of their drinking habits. (Maybe it fixes my girl problems independently from curing my bad breath but the advertisement seems to be telling me that it will solve my girl problems by means of curing my bad breath. Same as the given drinking father real-world example.)

Can you think of a non-cure-all example for which this argument holds?

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#300

Post by randomdata »

ndriscoll wrote: post #292
randomdata wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one in their right mind would ever give their kids Oreos for breakfast Assuming you are going to feed your children Oreos at some point, why not for breakfast? > Cookies are, in fact, not a part of a complete breakfast. They could be. If you are going to eat them anyway, why not at breakfast? > Evidently, you can convince people that they are by just repeating the message thousands of times to them. Evidently no…

> Evidently people don't pay attention to what is said and will go off and do their own thing. It's almost like that was the intention. It's weird how the ad doesn't prominently show the eggs, beans, etc. and talk about how great they are, and instead focuses on how you can totally eat cookies for breakfast! Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnvHUXssIAo "Not Candy! Resees Puffs cereal!" It is candy.…

> The purpose of this commercial is not to inform you about how to use their product

Assuming we watched the same video, the purpose is to inform the offer of a solution to a problem: The problem of parents needing to rush off to work and the kids off to school, without time to prepare a proper healthy breakfast, with the kids crying "I'm hungry" yet turning their nose up at anything that might be even reasonably healthy.

Hell ya I've given my children candy for breakfast on occasion. We seem to both accept that the occasional treat is not the end of the world. Why not at breakfast? I certainly wouldn't want to make it a habit, but I can also say that from a point of relative privilege in time and resources to cater to other choices. While I think we can agree it is not ideal to turn it into a habit, I can empathize with the parent who is trying to cope with a hard situation by resorting to something that solves the immediate problem.

> ...as part of a healthy diet

While this ends up being true, does this caveat not imply that health is the only problem people face? Clearly that is not true.

> It is to turn your brain off and get you to buy something that you intuitively know is not appropriate.

Like you imply, I expect most parents have a pang of guilt when buying breakfast candy for their children, but I expect they also don't know what is a better alternative that fits within their life constraints. If you could market to them something that is at least as equally palatable to the picky child, at least as easy to prepare, and actually healthy, I bet you could destroy the cereal market overnight. But without consumers becoming aware of that better solution...

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