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from the if-they-had-only-listened-before dept.
Marketoonist ran a story about marketers saying, "Oops, our bad."
The Interactive Advertising Bureau issued a remarkable mea culpa last week about the state of online advertising. In response to the rise of ad-blocking software, IAB VP Scott Cunningham said digital advertisers should take responsibility for annoying people and driving them to use ad blockers:
"We messed up. As technologists, tasked with delivering content and services to users, we lost track of the user experience....
"We build advertising technology to optimize publishers' yield of marketing budgets that had eroded after the last recession. Looking back now, our scraping of dimes may have cost us dollars in consumer loyalty...
"The consumer is demanding these actions, challenging us to do better, and we must respond."
Nod to pipedot for running this story.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by quadrox on Monday October 26 2015, @07:13AM
I actually have a problem with close to all forms of advertising.
Advertising introduces memetic thoughts into our brains, with the sole intent of extracting money from us. How anyone can not see this as inherently evil is beyond me. Furthermore, my brain gets bogged down with countless jingles, slogans, imagery and other completely useless crap, that I just not want in there. I am convinced that the constant attack on our minds through various forms of advertising is contributing to stress and other psychological problems.
I understand the need to inform people about the availability of a product that they might otherwise not know about - but this should be done in the most "boring" information-only way. No pictures of smiling people, no slogans, no music, no glaring colors or anything of the sort. Present the product on a neutral colored background, and give the specifications - nothing else allowed. Anything beyond that should be have been forbidden a long time ago.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Adamsjas on Monday October 26 2015, @07:35AM
Sorry, when I go shopping on the web, I know what I'm looking for, and I expect a lot of information, and I expect images, maybe movies. Not willing to accept your crazy-assed restrictions just because or your childish fear of "memetic thoughts". For christ sake grow up, learn to look away.
If I come to the web to research band saws I expect to find them with a search engine, I expect to find retailers, I expect to find the manufacturer's site. And I expect to find advertising that informs me about the product, both on retailer sites like Home Depot, as well as tool rental shops, and mail order places
The web will ALWAYS have that, because most people want that capability. If you can't handle that, get off the web. Its not for you.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by quadrox on Monday October 26 2015, @08:18AM
And I have no problem with presenting all of that on the product page for that product. Just don't show it to me in an advertisement without me asking for it.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @08:22AM
For christ sake
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grow up,
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learn to look away.
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Burma Shave!
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday October 26 2015, @02:18PM
If I come to the web to research band saws I expect to find them with a search engine, I expect to find retailers, I expect to find the manufacturer's site. And I expect to find advertising that informs me about the product, both on retailer sites like Home Depot, as well as tool rental shops, and mail order places
Yes, that's fine - on the web sites of retailers and manufacturers. I don't think most people here are objecting to that. Like if I want to buy a camera I look at the websites of Pentax, Canon etc to see what they offer, and I also look at review sites to find what there is on the market (maybe a make of camera I've not heard of before).
What I and most here are objecting to is having camera adverts (or any other) jumping up over a web page about donkey riding (for example) that I am trying to read, because some marketing droid is tracking me to the ends of the earth after I happened to look at a camera-oriented website once.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday October 26 2015, @01:29PM
Well this is why I liked Google Ads, years ago before they started all the tracking BS. It was great: you did a search, and on the right side of your search results, there were some small, 3-line, text-only ads which pertained to whatever you just searched for. It was a good way to find products that solved a problem you were having, and it paid for the search engine.
Unfortunately, that's gone now, replaced with all kinds of tracking and spying.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Monday October 26 2015, @01:30PM
I agree with your expressed sentiment. I hold the same belief that brainwashing the masses is really evil. And of course though much less effective than in average case, I know it has some effect on me nonetheless. They have gotten so good at their brain-warping that no one is safe. But you won't ever get them to agree or to see it for what it is, because they were the first casualty of their own propaganda.