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from the ad-viewing-quota-enforcement dept.
The University of Warwick's Andrew Oswald and his team compared survey data on the life satisfaction of more than 900,000 citizens of 27 European countries from 1980 to 2011 with data on annual advertising spending in those nations over the same period. The researchers found an inverse connection between the two. The higher a country's ad spend was in one year, the less satisfied its citizens were a year or two later. Their conclusion: Advertising makes us unhappy.
Oswald: We did find a significant negative relationship. When you look at changes in national happiness each year and changes in ad spending that year or a few years earlier—and you hold other factors like GDP and unemployment constant—there is a link. This suggests that when advertisers pour money into a country, the result is diminished well-being for the people living there.
HBR: What prompted you to investigate this?
[ . . . ] I can't help noticing the increasing amount of ads we're bombarded with. For me, it was natural to wonder whether it might create dissatisfaction in our culture [ . . . ] In a sense they're trying to generate dissatisfaction—stirring up your desires so that you spend more
[ . . . . ] exposing people to a lot of advertising raises their aspirations—and makes them feel that their own lives, achievements, belongings, and experiences are inadequate.
[ . . . . ] we controlled for lots of other influences on happiness. Second, we looked at increases or drops in advertising in a given year and showed that they successfully predicted a rise or fall in national happiness in ensuing years.
So always take two ad blockers before bedtime.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday January 16 2020, @12:31PM (4 children)
because it consumes a significant part of my brain's limited memory size and processing power for nothing of value whatsoever. Case in point: to this day, I remember stupid ads for stupid products that don't even exist anymore decades after they were broadcast on TV repeatedly for weeks on end and forcefully hammered into my child head.
Nowadays, I take extreme measures to avoid watching, listening to or reading ads. Whenever an ad gets through, I make a mental note to never EVER buy any product from the company that decided to pollute my brain with their ad campaign without my consent. At least with me, they get the exact opposite of what they were hoping for: no sales.
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Thursday January 16 2020, @12:53PM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:01PM (1 child)
Don't forget Max Headroom.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 17 2020, @12:46AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday January 16 2020, @05:17PM
And it's not that simple anyway. E.g., I remember:
"Pepsi-cola hits the spot,
12 full ounces that's a lot,
Twice as much for a nickle, too...."
from when I was eight, and I didn't buy Pepsi then, or like it later.
I suspect that ads are mainly effective against those who are unfamiliar with the product. But I know I always take "As Seen on TV" as a recommendation to not buy the product. (I'm glad they tell me, as since I don't watch TV I'd otherwise not know what to avoid.)
P.S.: I think that jingle is what Alfred Bester had in mind when he coined the term "a pepsi" for an mind-word in "The Demolished Man".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.