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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

#41

Post by anoncake »

maxxxxx wrote: post #7
jandrese wrote: post #4

Isn't this what you would expect? Advertising fundamentally is trying to convince you that you need something. If you're perfectly happy with your current situation then what else would you need? So the advertising has to convince you that you're not happy but that there is a product that you can buy that will increase your happiness. You're basically being negged by advertisers.

I guess that’s the current form of advertising. It tries to create demand where there has been none before. You could also imagine advertising that tries to address your actual needs. Unfortunately that probably would make a much smaller market.

Current? A German philosopher wrote in 1844:

> every person speculates on creating a new need in another, so as to drive him to fresh sacrifice, to place him in a new dependence and to seduce him into a new mode of enjoyment and therefore economic ruin.

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

#43

Post by cm2012 »

kazinator wrote: post #21
cm2012 wrote: post #3

Doubling of advertising expidenture (Which is a massive, sea change) would apparently make people 3% less happy. So basically it has a negligible impact on happiness even if this analysis is true. I highly doubt it is true though. It's a purely correlational study, that says from 1980-2011, advertising increased and people in general got 3% less happy. They say they accounted for GDP when doing their regression, but…

The spending on advertizing likely has diminishing returns. The marginal decrease in satisfaction that would come from doubling the spending is possibly smaller than the baseline decrease caused by the initial expenditure.

There's nothing in their data to support this, and if the effect was there they would have seen it (since they have yearly happiness data). They describe a linear correlation.

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

#44

Post by jahewson »

plg wrote: post #6

my kids only watch netflix and shows/movies we buy on iTunes so basically they see virtually no ads, SO unlike my experience growing up watching network TV where every 12 minutes there was a series of 5 or 6 30-second ads

> so basically they see virtually no ads

(Camera slowly pans to bottle of coca-cola)

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

#45

Post by deogeo »

lordnacho wrote: post #24
jandrese wrote: post #4

Isn't this what you would expect? Advertising fundamentally is trying to convince you that you need something. If you're perfectly happy with your current situation then what else would you need? So the advertising has to convince you that you're not happy but that there is a product that you can buy that will increase your happiness. You're basically being negged by advertisers.

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…

> 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".

I almost never see ads of type one - in fact, even finding that information is usually made accidentally or deliberately difficult.

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

#46

Post by ACow_Adonis »

jacquesm wrote: post #22
plg wrote: post #6

my kids only watch netflix and shows/movies we buy on iTunes so basically they see virtually no ads, SO unlike my experience growing up watching network TV where every 12 minutes there was a series of 5 or 6 30-second ads

And what do you think Netflix's ranking is if not advertising? 'movies we recommend based on other movies you've seen' and so on.

assuming he's like me (ad blockers, limited tv, etc), I have a Netflix account, and I don't even honestly know what 'Netflix ranking' is.

Assumimg it is something like Netflix's recommendation service, well, this might come back to an difference in philosophy: I don't need/want to be recommended shows to watch, and I don't use recommender/suggestions.

One does not have a need/desire to consume media as an abstract concept, so the idea that one has a problem of "I want to watch something but i don't know what" is a literal nonsensical statement/problem.

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

#47

Post by eswat »

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…

It’s a colossal move but we have to move the marketplace away from the current growth capitalism towards one of real utility.

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

#48

Post by arcticfox »

jacquesm wrote: post #22
plg wrote: post #6

my kids only watch netflix and shows/movies we buy on iTunes so basically they see virtually no ads, SO unlike my experience growing up watching network TV where every 12 minutes there was a series of 5 or 6 30-second ads

And what do you think Netflix's ranking is if not advertising? 'movies we recommend based on other movies you've seen' and so on.

That really seems to be stretching 'advertising' beyond its definition to me. That seems like even less of 'advertising' than looking at a menu and trying to decide what to order, given that you've already paid for the service (for now, at least).

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

#49

Post by anoncake »

jandrese wrote: post #4

Isn't this what you would expect? Advertising fundamentally is trying to convince you that you need something. If you're perfectly happy with your current situation then what else would you need? So the advertising has to convince you that you're not happy but that there is a product that you can buy that will increase your happiness. You're basically being negged by advertisers.

It's also one reason we fail to stop the climate crisis. It's hard to reduce our emissions if we "need" as much as our economy can produce.

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

#50

Post by WalterBright »

jressey wrote: post #32
jandrese wrote: post #4

Isn't this what you would expect? Advertising fundamentally is trying to convince you that you need something. If you're perfectly happy with your current situation then what else would you need? So the advertising has to convince you that you're not happy but that there is a product that you can buy that will increase your happiness. You're basically being negged by advertisers.

I would go further and state that our entire economy and society are based on the manufacturing of demand. There are so few things we actually need. Food, water, clothing, shelter. Everything else is a luxury you've been convinced to buy (or it was given to you by someone who was convinced). I'm not talking about ethics here, just straight facts.

Prison provides food, water, clothing and shelter. We send people there to punish them.
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