In Paris, an anti-ad insurgency grows • Hacker News Board

Re: In Paris, an anti-ad insurgency grows

#11

Post by turkishrevenge » Fri, Feb 06, 2009, 7:22 PM UTC

Kototama wrote: post #4

zupatol wrote: post #2

The article links the anti-ad movement to anti-capitalist feelings. Advertising is not essential to capitalism. While economists built countless models that show the superiority of competition and free markets, advertising is something they have barely studied. One of the fundamental assumptions of most models is that consumer preferences are fixed. Advertising works by changing user preferences, so the typical econo…

It's not neutral information that is conveyed. It's really more propaganda. And sometimes it's really subtle. Check the Wikipedia article on Edward Bernays, a nephew of Freud who used the Freud's theories for advertising. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

The BBC documentary "The Century of the Self" really delves into the role that Bernays played in changing the notion of selling on the basis of utility to one of selling on the basis of emotion, e.g. from "Buy this car because it offers superior reliability" to "Buy this car because you will attract women" etc.

Re: In Paris, an anti-ad insurgency grows

#12

Post by turkishrevenge » Fri, Feb 06, 2009, 7:27 PM UTC

anamax wrote: post #10

tome wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Galbraith would say, I think, (and I would agree with him) that sexual and social needs are innate and would express themselves even if information about possible means of expression is suppressed. You might as well say "raise a group of boys without clothes" and then tell them "there's this thing called clothes that will keep you warm". It doesn't matter if you don't tell them: they'll still be cold. On the othe…

> On the other hand, no one has a need for a MegaBananaChoco bar in particular. If you never tell anyone about the bar, they're not going to suffer from not having it. You're cheating. While it's fair to say that no one has a "need" for a specific bit of sugary goodness, it's not fair to say that no one needs better food and won't suffer from not having it. Yes, the "need" for better food may be expressed, but that's…

You're still missing the point tome is trying to make. Unless there is an innate need for a particular thing, often on the basis of utility as it relates to survival or reproduction, a person cannot want what he is ignorant of. Only through exposure, can a person form a desire and adequately articulate wanting something, as in "I want to buy Reese's."

Re: In Paris, an anti-ad insurgency grows

#13

Post by anamax » Fri, Feb 06, 2009, 8:50 PM UTC

turkishrevenge wrote: post #12

anamax wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, no one has a need for a MegaBananaChoco bar in particular. If you never tell anyone about the bar, they're not going to suffer from not having it. You're cheating. While it's fair to say that no one has a "need" for a specific bit of sugary goodness, it's not fair to say that no one needs better food and won't suffer from not having it. Yes, the "need" for better food may be expressed, but that's…

You're still missing the point tome is trying to make. Unless there is an innate need for a particular thing, often on the basis of utility as it relates to survival or reproduction, a person cannot want what he is ignorant of. Only through exposure, can a person form a desire and adequately articulate wanting something, as in "I want to buy Reese's ."

> Unless there is an innate need for a particular thing, often on the basis of utility as it relates to survival or reproduction, a person cannot want what he is ignorant of.

That fails wrt "good food". There is no innate need for any specific food. Yet, there is a generic expressed need.

Heck - it even fails wrt clothing and warm. There are many ways to be warm. (When my cat gets cold, she doesn't put on pants.)

> You're still missing the point tome is trying to make.

I'm pointing out that the interesting version is wrong and the correct version is uninteresting.

Yes, one can't want a specific solution of which one is unaware, but that's not a very interesting result. One can easily want a solution to a generic problem ("cold", "food") and thus value information wrt specific solutions ("little black dress", "Reese's").