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Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

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Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#341

Post by ericdykstra »

seasoup wrote: post #20

I think they are missing the biggest issue with advertising, which is it incentivizes businesses to create things for the sole purpose of drawing their attention to the advertising. Truth is less important than shock value. Utility less important than appearance of utility. Extremist rhetoric gathers more eyeballs than moderate views. Advertising's biggest negative effects are in how it manipulates people into manipu…

I take a little bit of issue with Truth is less important than shock value, which implies that news media is selling out their content for profit. The vast majority of news outlets don't make enough in ad revenue to stay afloat, and rely on outside funding. The news itself is the propaganda. Carlos Slim didn't put $250 million into the New York Times out of charity, he did it to buy influence.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#342

Post by ericdykstra »

mayniac wrote: post #237
erentz wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there are bigger changes we may need to make in terms of growth capitalism you refer to, for the simple subject at hand - advertising - there is a simple fix. Simply ban advertising in more places and ban more types of advertising. It's really not as heavy handed as it sounds. Bans on billboards in parts of the world show the way. We can ban tracking of users. We can ban collection or sale or personal data. Thi…

I formed the opinion a while ago that we should go a step further: ban advertising entirely (not exactly a new idea, Bill Hicks came first [1]). Billboards, TV ads, newspaper ads, paid-for articles, promoted Instagram content, all internet ads, everything. One of the main tenants of capitalism is that it naturally produces a meritocracy. Products which are of a higher quality or cheaper than their competitors should,…

I get the sentiment, but advertising is just a small part of how public perception is manipulated. Edward Bernays laid this out in his 1928 book, Propaganda, which is a how-to guide to indoctrination and manipulation of the public.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#343

Post by craftinator »

rwc wrote: post #30
lordnacho wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well like it says there's two kinds. One is "Hey, did you know this thing exists? Check it out! Here are all the tests it passed, realistic cost of ownership, and locations where it is in stock". The other is "Look at this woman, isn't she fascinating? People like her will desire you more if you buy the thing she's lying on top of. Actual woman not included." Unfortunately, people have discovered type 2 is effective…

But can you point to a time in human history where type 2 wasn't the predominant form of advertising? This is not some modern discovery or exploit.

I think type 2 has been around since Ogg sold "bright hot magic" to Urgh the thatcher. The big change is that within the last 60 years or so, we have developed very accurate scientific models of human cognition and behavior, and those models are being used to shape advertising to have measurable effects on how humans perceive the world. It's like we've developed Persuasion, the Force skill from Starwars, and now we are using it to control peoples' buying habits, and doing so in ways that are actively harmful.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#344

Post by chc »

livueta wrote: post #113
chc wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many big content websites do you know that are doing well without ads?

Does Wikipedia count as a big content website? n=1 and all that, but I think it's a decent example of how things that are actually useful do just fine[1] without ads. This might sound harsh, but if people are unwilling to pay for something with any currency they don't implicitly count as worthless, maybe it shouldn't exist. The 20xx equivalent of checkout aisle gossip mags going quietly into that good night is a feat…

> This might sound harsh, but if people are unwilling to pay for something with any currency they don't implicitly count as worthless, maybe it shouldn't exist.

That's essentially every news source that isn't purely propaganda with billionaires footing the bill for its dissemination. This stance seems pretty closely similar in effect to "The only things that should exist are the interests of the rich."

I agree there are a lot of societal illnesses (even beyond those mentioned in the OP) that trace back to ad-supported websites, but ads have been the main reason information has been available to average people for literally decades now, dating back to print and broadcast media in the 20th century. I think if we want to replace them, we need to be thoughtful about how to do better.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#345

Post by DoreenMichele »

craftinator wrote: post #340
DoreenMichele wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a copywriter in the sense of "person who writes adverts," but I am someone who writes copy for website content. One of the problems is that it isn't even good communication to say (for example) "This device has a 7 inch screen." That's mostly useless information for most people. It's much more genuinely helpful to tell people something like "You can easily read our large screen even in bright sunlight." Most…

> Most people aren't going to see specs concerning screen size and mentally translate that to "Woah, this will make my life easier because it will be more readable than the dinky thing I currently use." This sentence really hurts my head, especially because I think you are right. In my mind, it is equivalent to being chased by a leopard, and not taking your knife out of your pocket because there's no one there to rem…

But what if you are encountering an alien life form from another planet? How will you know if it's basically like a leopard, in spite of being purple with green stripes, so stabby thing it is? Or maybe it's friendly and stabbing it would start an intergalactic war because it's actually a visiting diplomat.

It's my job to give such clues to the clueless. (Not intended to call anyone stupid. I used to routinely ask for clues for the clueless when asking questions for myself online and self identifyng as the clueless on topics where I lacked expertise.)

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#346

Post by deepakkarki »

Folks in this thread may find this interesting, a 4 part documentary on Edward Bernays and the history of advertising and PR as we know it today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04

From the video description -

"The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world."

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#347

Post by QuadmasterXLII »

solitus wrote: post #304
ngold wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the math geniuses that could be the next Einstein are slaving away in cubicles writing algorithms for the stock market. So much potential lost in the pursuit of increasing someone else's wallet.

And their own. These people are writing algorithms for the stock market because it pays incredibly well. Same for the engineers at FAANG selling ads online. Our society values money/material above all else and it's making us miserable. Money is your score at the game of life.

Money is an alternative to violence, given that in a large population instrumental convergence converges to something

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#348

Post by zdragnar »

mayniac wrote: post #237
erentz wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there are bigger changes we may need to make in terms of growth capitalism you refer to, for the simple subject at hand - advertising - there is a simple fix. Simply ban advertising in more places and ban more types of advertising. It's really not as heavy handed as it sounds. Bans on billboards in parts of the world show the way. We can ban tracking of users. We can ban collection or sale or personal data. Thi…

I formed the opinion a while ago that we should go a step further: ban advertising entirely (not exactly a new idea, Bill Hicks came first [1]). Billboards, TV ads, newspaper ads, paid-for articles, promoted Instagram content, all internet ads, everything. One of the main tenants of capitalism is that it naturally produces a meritocracy. Products which are of a higher quality or cheaper than their competitors should,…

Unfortunately, I think your solution would effectively destroy democracy at any level other than mayor and dog-catcher in tiny cities.

Televised presidential debates? Those are advertising for party-sponsored candidates to the disadvantage of write-in candidates. If all publicity is good publicity, then the same holds true for all news articles about candidates running for any office. How is a newspaper editorial proclaiming that "Elected official X is bad for Y!" any different than a campaign ad in the same newspaper that "Elected official X is great for Y!"?

In one case, the newspaper makes money to put the content to be there, in the other, the newspaper makes money because the content is there.

The same goes for books: how is publishing a biography of someone not a form of advertisement for or against that person?

If I'm not mistaken, that happens to also be the heart of (at least one of the justices' deliberations on) the Citizens United case that declared corporate spending on elections to be covered under free speech.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#349

Post by geowwy »

ngold wrote: post #182
enlyth wrote: post #15

To me, it is worrying how much human effort we're investing into advertising as a whole. The top minds of our generations, backed by billions of dollars in funding, are working on increasingly manipulative ways to capture people's attention and use it to generate profit. We're constantly getting better at it; who knows what path this will lead us down. I suspect it might not be the one we had wished for.

And then the math geniuses that could be the next Einstein are slaving away in cubicles writing algorithms for the stock market. So much potential lost in the pursuit of increasing someone else's wallet.

The stock market geniuses probably enjoy their work. I imagine it's exciting and pays well. Can't say the same about academic work.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#350

Post by crispinb »

air7 wrote: post #300
crispinb wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I view advertising as a form of pollution Quite. If (which is now for obvious reasons somewhat unlikely) our global civilisation manque struggles on for another century, it will look back on the overconsumption propaganda industry very much like we now see slavery. Ogilvy, Saatchi et al are the Goebbels' of our age.

> Ogilvy, Saatchi et al are the Goebbels' of our age. Sorry, but that is waaay over the top. It makes you sound a bit nutty. A "Truther" of sorts, that dangerously believes too profoundly in his own ideology.

I understand that, and agree from a conventional point of view the comment does look nutty.

However the notion that the current so-called 'growth' oriented global order threatens the very fabric of our living planet, while not yet quite mainstream in corporate media, is gaining currency fast. It's well inside the fringe in academia and on the streets.

And the notion that marketing's most fundamental aim is to create desires for more consumption (hence more fake 'growth' aka ecosystem destruction) isn't a conspiracy theory (contra your 'Truther' jibe). It's quite open: philosophically-inclined marketers have understood this for a long time. They even used the term 'consumer engineering' in the early 20th C.

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