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Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

jacek.zlydach.pl

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Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#141

Post by gambiting »

solipsism wrote: post #111
joshgel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a doctor, I'm all for banning soft drinks, recognizing that it probably will never happen. But, the health externalities associated with drinking such beverages should get priced in and be used to offset eventual health complications. This is not easy because no one likes taxes, but you get what you pay for.

May we be allowed cake and ice cream or would you ban those as well? Maybe you can get a special license if it's a birthday?

You need to judge a social impact of something before you ban it. The reason why soft drinks are under fire is because there is a lot of people who drink them literally every day. I know several people who drink 8-12 cans of diet coke every single day. On the other hand people usually don't eat cake or ice-cream everyday. I mean, I have no doubt that you could find someone who does, but it's not a widespread behaviour, so there is no reason to ban it.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#142

Post by blodovnik »

blodovnik wrote: post #8

This is a dogmatic viewpoint I think often seen in very technical people who are unwilling to see the interconnectedness of how our society works. I bet there's any number of things this person values that simply wouldn't exist without advertising. It's a childish and immature opinion really. Anyone who hates advertising this much should show their commitment by working at an organization that does not advertise. Loa…

I note the author is very much involved in companies projects and social media platforms that all depend on advertising.

http://jacek.zlydach.pl/index.html

I'd respect his position more if he was not on LinkedIn or Facebook and did not work on commercial projects.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#143

Post by dheera »

wpietri wrote: 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'd really love to have an AR real-life ad blocker. Replace all billboards with works of art.

Separately I think advertising will have to find new forms of expression that are less repulsive. I won't want to block ads if they are actually fun and interesting.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#144

Post by cm2012 »

smt88 wrote: post #20
blodovnik wrote: post #8

This is a dogmatic viewpoint I think often seen in very technical people who are unwilling to see the interconnectedness of how our society works. I bet there's any number of things this person values that simply wouldn't exist without advertising. It's a childish and immature opinion really. Anyone who hates advertising this much should show their commitment by working at an organization that does not advertise. Loa…

What valuable things wouldn't exist without advertising?

Almost all new inventions and start-ups in the last 50 needed effective marketing for people to find out about them and use them.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#145

Post by alexott »

wpietri wrote: 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…

There are examples when companies are doing well without advertising: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oettinger_Brewery

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#146

Post by autoexec »

perfunctory wrote: post #109

Compulsory quote "Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we w…

I've always liked this one:

"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs."

    – Banksy

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#147

Post by yellowapple »

irrational wrote: post #54
magashna wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This does give me some hope that future generations will start to see video-interrupting ads (like traditional commercial breaks) as absurd, unusual, disruptive, and annoying.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#148

Post by RealityVoid »

megaman821 wrote: post #72
wpietri wrote: 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…

You don't think they have ever tried that. They stopped ad spend in certain locations and in those locations sales went down. People don't have time to research every single choice in their lives. At some point you just go with brand trust. When I see Uncle Floyd's Cola and CocaCola, I just go with what I know. Advertising establishes brand trust.

Yes, they did that and sales went down because competitors did not stop advertising. I doubt that if all advertising stops tomorrow that globas usage would stop. Who would suffer would be companies that rlie on hype instead of quality.

Advertisement is a zero sum game.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#149

Post by kristopolous »

13415 wrote: post #68

I'd rather be worried about whether advertising is (cost-)effective. Couldn't there be an advertising industry bubble? I block all ads online nowadays, but when I didn't, I found it hard to believe that they could be worth the money.

The bubble theory on ads is interesting.

Around 2009 I saw it as "unprofitable venture backed companies advertising on unprofitable venture backed platforms" as if it's some kind of matryoshka doll system that works as a baton passing from one generation of bad investments to the next - no revenue is trading hands, just poorly placed investor money:

A kafkaesque anarchy of people siloed at companies named after adjectives spelled without vowels passing pixels for sale among each other hoping that some unicorn will fall out of their back pocket.

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