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Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

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Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#331

Post by Groxx »

bcmo wrote: post #224
pascalxus wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These stories are so common, when I read it, I was thinking it was a precise description of my own brother. My brother who earns 6 times less than I purchases a 1000$ Samsung phone whereas I don't buy any phone at all and just use the handme-down from my wife, for 0$. It's a 5 year old iphone6 but still works Great. His other expenses are much lower though: for example, he has subsidized housing which means he pays a…

No one thinks advertising works on them. That's why it works on them.

There's clearly a range of influence though, and it's not crazy to think that some people fall further on one side than others.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#332

Post by Groxx »

banads wrote: post #7

Isn't that the primary goal of most advertising? To create a dissatisfaction in people in such a way that they're driven to buy your product in an attempt to fill that void?

In practice: probably, yea.

In principle: not necessarily? Needs and dissatisfaction can be pre-existing, but advertising is basically the only effective way for people to find out that options exist.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#333

Post by Retric »

theptip wrote: post #330
Retric wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not showing up in fatality rates. 2009 had 1.15 deaths per 100 million miles, 2018 had 1.13 but that difference is just noise. With 2014 down at 1.08 and 2016 up at 1.19. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... Of course plenty of older cars are still on the road, but collision avoidance systems have been on the roads for years and don’t seem to be having significant impact. Granted, driv…

> It’s not showing up in fatality rates. Fair, it does seem like the overall statistics don't show this. I'm having trouble squaring this with the data showing that these technologies are preventing accidents. > Granted, driver behaviors may be getting worse I wonder whether the top quartile is getting significantly better (thus resulting in the great "crashes avoided" numbers that these technologies claim) while eve…

It might also be that fatal accidents are much harder for automated driving systems to prevent. They could drastically reduce parking lot fender benders or low speed rear end collisions, but those are ultra low risk.

Someone doing 140+MPH is going to receive minimal benifits from 1/8th of a second of early breaking before hitting a tree. Similarly, losing control on ice and driving off a cliff, or getting hit with a jackknifed semi truck etc.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#334

Post by whatshisface »

pascalxus wrote: post #327
bluntfang wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i mean, yeah if you're 60+, cleaning your house is good exercise. But let's not pretend that cleaning your house is exercise for anyone under 60.

it really can be. It can be as vigorous as a walk down the street which is tremendously beneficial to your health. I know we've been conditioned to believe that excercise needs to be something specific like running or swimming, or tennis, etc. But, you just need to move your body. even gardening can be beneficial - the benefits of squating down are vastly underestimated.

A walk down the street is not enough to reach any level of physical fitness, although it's certainly good for you and better than nothing.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#335

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

kerkeslager wrote: post #319
Nasrudith wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation which would lead to things being worse for consumers. Really advertising is sort of an analog to reproductive signaling burdens like males deliberately showing fitness by making themselves obvious to predators.

> It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation which would lead to things being worse for consumers. Right, but we don't have to accept that it has to be this way. If we're committing to the idea that competition is there to benefit consumers, we should cut out the parts of competition that clearly aren't beneficia…

> ...if people got information about products from independent reviewers

No such thing; in markets where traditional advertising never caught hold, the 'independent' reviewers are anything but. In a way that is much worse when bias and vested interest is clearly labeled.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#336

Post by kerkeslager »

manigandham wrote: post #329
kerkeslager wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Flaws are subjective depending on how a product doesn't match your needs. What would a company consider a flaw? That's one part of the issue. A company's product might be the best product for some people's needs, but there might be another product that fits the needs of some market segment better. But the company doesn't care if their product is the best for that segment: a sale is a sale. They'll advertise the str…

> " I've never released a product that didn't have bugs and tradeoffs " Bugs are not known flaws, otherwise you should fix them. What's the warning, that nothing is guaranteed to be perfect? > " advertising deliberately gives you wrong or incomplete information. " Incorrect. False advertising is illegal. Trade-offs are subjective to you . What's considered complete information is subjective to you . Consumers benefit…

> Bugs are not known flaws, otherwise you should fix them.

That's not reality. Sometimes you don't have budget, sometimes there isn't a clear solution, etc.

> Incorrect. False advertising is illegal.

Haha! Okay buddy. Not sure what country you live in where that even pretends to be true, but our US companies are happy to break laws in that country to lie to you.

> Whether that product works for you is your choice. If you need more info then go research it. Nobody is going to magically tell you what's best for your life, that's your responsibility.

Sure, but let's not pretend that advertisers are our helpful friends here. They are our opponents, whose misinformation we have to constantly combat in order to find useful information to make informed decisions.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#337

Post by nickelcitymario »

wpietri wrote: post #322
nickelcitymario wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't presume to know how shady the people in other industries are. I've met very few of them in advertising. Alas, they tend to be in the executive suite. (I suspect that's equally true in most industries, but that's pure speculation.) The vast majority of the actual people in this industry are good people who try their best to do good work. They're looking to make an honest buck and feel good about what they do.…

Sure. I've known people who work in advertising. They all are pretty swell. They want to feel good about who they are and what they do. That's universal. Of course, I also once worked for what was basically a scam. As a teen, I answered an ad in the paper. We did telephone-based charity fundraising. Basically, telemarketing but "for good". Turns out the average amount passed on to charities was in the 10%-15% range.…

Not much I can say to that if your view is to discount anything I say due to being inside the industry. Seems like you've given yourself an airtight excuse to not consider any counter argument.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#338

Post by kerkeslager »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #335
kerkeslager wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation which would lead to things being worse for consumers. Right, but we don't have to accept that it has to be this way. If we're committing to the idea that competition is there to benefit consumers, we should cut out the parts of competition that clearly aren't beneficia…

> ...if people got information about products from independent reviewers No such thing; in markets where traditional advertising never caught hold, the 'independent' reviewers are anything but. In a way that is much worse when bias and vested interest is clearly labeled.

Consumer Reports, Labdoor, etc. work just fine.

You can look at where the money for these companies comes from, and see who they're serving.

Also, if you think that advertising bias and vested interest is clearly labeled, you may be seeing a lot of advertising that you don't realize is advertising.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#339

Post by nickelcitymario »

tomtheelder wrote: post #261
nickelcitymario wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you cherry picked the worst examples, let me cherry pick some of the best: - Ads for charities - Political ads (which are only good or bad if you agree or disagree with their positions) - Ads for schools - Movie trailers (a form of entertainment in it of themselves) Also: I suspect (but don't have the means to prove) a positive correlation between advertising spending and national GDP. Look, if your point is th…

> Also: I suspect (but don't have the means to prove) a positive correlation between advertising spending and national GDP. Is the implication that you believe that's causal? That you think reducing advertising spending would be economically detrimental? I suspect that isn't true, since it's basically just an arms race. Companies are forced into competing along the axis of marketing (they also choose to since it's mo…

> Is the implication that you believe that's causal?

Less implication and more exactly what I was trying to say.

> I suspect that isn't true, since it's basically just an arms race.

You may be right, you may be wrong. But I don't understand how anyone can say advertising causes people to spend money on things they don't need and also that advertising does not positively impact the economy. Those seem contradictory, and yet that appears to be the argument being made.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#340

Post by nickelcitymario »

asdfqwer234 wrote: post #321
nickelcitymario wrote: post #28

I'm gonna take the contrarian viewpoint here. Full disclosure: I'm in advertising. The researcher states that increasing "aspiration" (their term) leads to dissatisfaction and more unhappiness. Sure! But aspiration is also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded fancy schools like Harvard, try to be good parents, etc. I don't disagree that ambition and aspiration can make a person unhappy. But it's also wh…

"...[I]s also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded fancy schools like Harvard" there's a huge false equivalency here; I'll let you figure out which one it is. How much consumer advertising appeals to "good" aspiration and fills a need which is fairly priced (ie doesn't have brand/marketing/silly subliminal cultural messaging priced in).

When I talked about inventions, I was talking about aspirations. I.e. whenever we do anything it's because we aspire to something better. Someone was cold, stumbled upon fire and saw that it kept them warm, and aspired to harness that so they could be warm all the time. I don't see how that's controversial.

As for how much advertising appeals to good aspirations, I have no idea. Probably not a lot of it. I wasn't defending all of advertising; I was saying don't throw the entire industry under the bus. I, for one, try to do only honest work for companies that provide goods and services that I believe in. Not everyone in this industry gets that freedom, but most of us do our best.

I get it, though. It's easy to hate on advertisers, just as it's easy to hate on salespeople and lawyers and politicians and stock brokers. I happen to consider all these professions necessary to our economy, though. I don't think it's a coincidence that the most prosperous societies have the most of these professions, including advertisers.

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