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, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday January 16 2020, @12:19PM (19 children)
... but I don't think is true.
Here's another, equally uncertain.
Good quality products don't need ads bombardment, just a short awareness raising at launch and then the product starts to speak for itself.
What needs ad bombardment are those that are in the hunt for new fools willing to buy a crap with planned obsolescence build in. Realizing you've been fooled is not something that can cheer you up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday January 16 2020, @12:58PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by julian on Thursday January 16 2020, @09:41PM
No one is immune from advertising and its negative psychic effects. The only protection is to block it from reaching your senses in the first place. The bad news is that there has never been more advertising in the world than there is today. The good news is that most of it is online, and we still--for now--control enough of our own computers that it can be blocked nearly entirely with no ongoing effort. I consider it a moral obligation to install adblocking software on every computer I legally can.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday January 16 2020, @02:42PM (5 children)
I mean, I find myself immediately less happy every time I see an actual ad anytime. If I watch a youtube video on mobile(where google makes the app and there's no adblock), and I'm subjected to something like a Bloomberg 2020 ad, the social stress of "I'm being lied to, I'm being lied to, I'm being lied to" on constant high alert reaches the point of being physically recognizable within a few seconds. You can feel your heartrate go up and your muscles tense from that.
Even if I let my "immunity" get back up by being constantly exposed to ads again, I can't help but feel that the whole industry creates that sensation constantly, quite aside from the desired reaction of you feeling like you need "stuff" to be happy, I think ads stress you out.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:45PM (4 children)
If you're unhappy, you'll buy shit.
Feel like you're ugly? Buy cream. Doesn't work. Feel shit. Rinse repeat.
Feel like you're fat? Buy equipment. Doesn't work. Feel shit. Rinse repeat.
It's not actually THEIR fault that you are a sucker for this. Figure out how to become happy with what you are/have. Then you won't go chasing after dreams (vanities).
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday January 16 2020, @09:37PM (3 children)
I don't think that really addresses my point that the feeling of being to lied and needing your mental defenses up is physically stressful
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday January 17 2020, @12:01AM (2 children)
"Lie" is too simple a term for what they do. They manipulate and condition, and obfuscate, bullshit, and confuse, and omit and bury alternatives, and exaggerate and magnify their own stuff, and depress (you have problems, and we can help!), psyche, and anything and everything else that might increase sales. Much of that, strictly speaking, is not outright telling of lies, though it certainly is dishonest. Takes substantially more mental effort to cut through such a complicated web than to deal with a few simple lies.
Those who are doing a huge public disservice with their manipulation do not care. For instance, arms merchants. I heard the CEO of an A/C manufacturer say that Global Warming was good for his business.
Soft drinks were originally intended for medicinal purposes and were not thought to become a staple of our diets. How that shift happened is, I would suppose, a case study in effective marketing. Wine and beer are restricted, because alcohol, while sodas get a huge pass despite being empty calories, the worst way to consume sugar. I quit sodas 30 years ago, save for settling an upset stomach. I once thought orange juice was healthy. It's not. Oranges are healthy. Orange juice is oranges with the health all removed. Juice is also out.
Another area we've sunk into is lawn care. It's just nuts. Mowing with an old fashioned reel mower is a lot of work. Those things are heavy, slow, and less effective. If your lawn isn't already pretty neat and monocultured, the reel mower needs lots of passes to cut it. Farmers such as my grandparents sure didn't bother. What for? With the advent of the power mower, lawn care was a ready made market. Advertisers hardly needed to work for it to convince everyone to mow. Status, you know. And, perhaps fear of snakes in the grass. Now, we even have it enshrined in law, in very pejorative terms, that mowing is required! Not mowing is showing that you don't care about the neighborhood, you have no pride in your property, you're creating places for vermin to hide, it's a fire hazard, and it reduces visibility.
Then there's personal care. Especially, the daily shower. Sweat and body odor is so low class, and stinky, disgusting and unhygienic and all. Before indoor plumbing, people pretty much had to suck it up. It was way too much work to pump, by hand, enough water to fill a tub and lug the whole thing into the house and heat it on a wood burning cook stove to do that every day. You took a bath once a week. Daily showering sure sells a lot more soap, shampoo, deodorant, perfume, cologne, lotion, skin conditioners, and so on. One of the sickest things about it all, is that if we ate better, and showered less, we wouldn't have such awful B. O.
I have always found it perverted that the drug store so prominently displays cigarettes, sugary or alcoholic beverages, junk food, and candy. Lots and lots of candy. Get your fix, and the medicines to deal with the fallout, in one convenient stop!
That's just a small sample of the tons of conditioning to which we've been subjected. One eye opener that really hit home with me was a little piece on The Onion that mocked people who buy frozen mac and cheese. Their skit had a suicide hot line and counselor in the grocery aisle to console people who were too lame to cook the macaroni themselves, despite it being so easy. Yet I'm still thoroughly conditioned to grab commercial off the shelf product for my every need. I am merely a bit more aware of it now, and have rebelled against a little of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17 2020, @03:49AM (1 child)
> Yet I'm still thoroughly conditioned to grab commercial off the shelf product for my every need.
Keep fighting son, you may make it yet!!
I was brought up mostly without TV (born 1955) and missed nearly all the adverts. When I started seeing ads, I was already old enough to do some of my own thinking, and see through them. It was weird in grade school being an outlier (even being bullied because I was somehow different), but I'm sure glad now that my parents made that choice.
Next time you need a snack, make sure you have salad fixings in the fridge.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday January 18 2020, @12:54AM
Oh, I'll keep fighting. The bullying to conform doesn't stop with graduation. It just becomes more refined and subtle. Cities don't literally throw punches and mostly don't stuff students into lockers (though they sometimes do stuff citizens into jails for the crime of not paying a fine for an overdue library book or letting the lawn get too tall). They just levy large fines and enjoy the revenue.
The main problem I have now is the uncooperative family who all always want to do things the easy way, and never mind the cost.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Thursday January 16 2020, @02:51PM (6 children)
I don't agree that people are made unhappy because they realise that ads have fooled them into buying crap. They don't realise it's crap; they think it's normal for a hedge-cutter (for example) to stop working shortly after the guarantee period (isn't that what a guarantee period means? they think). They consider it acceptable for their PC operation system to crash with a blue screen every so often. They are made unhappy when the next version comes along and the marketing droids start decrying the one they already own, and telling them they should buy the newer one or else they are idiots.
Case in the UK - for years the ad droids pushed us into replacing single glazed windows with double glazed ones. But now practically everyone who would buy double glazing has done so, leaving the droids with not much to do. So now we are told that double glazing is rubbish and we should rip it all out and replace it with triple glazing. Seems we are ruining the environment by not fitting triple glazing. This worries some people.
<sarcasm>This must explain why I'm so happy.</sarcasm> I rarely see an advert, far less than most people in developed countries, and the ones I do see have a negative effect on me from the advertiser's point of view.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:04PM (2 children)
My windows are almost 40 years old, but they keep the cold out much better than the single glazed windows that still have high prevalence around here.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:31PM (1 child)
So you're using . . . (calculator clickety click) . . . Windows 80. It sounds like it keeps things out better than Windows 10.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1) by wArlOrd on Thursday January 16 2020, @07:38PM
I'm now using Windows 95, I think it's almost ten times better than Windows 9
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday January 16 2020, @05:17PM
One interesting conversation I had with a family of immigrants I had befriended: They had escaped from Bosnia to Germany, then came to the US as refugees, and the mom of the family was complaining about the household goods. In summary, she said that the German and even Yugoslavian governments would never have allowed such shoddy products to get to the store shelves because their consumer protection agencies would have stopped it. The US basically has no consumer protection to speak of, so most of what's sold as supposedly durable goods is worthless crap that will break if you breath on it too much.
As for why the ads make you feel bad, that's very much intentional: People buy products because they have been convinced those products will solve a problem. But the advertisers need to sell as much as possible, even if people don't actually need the thing they're selling. So the ads both tell people that they have a problem and that their product will solve the problem. Some people will be fooled into buying the product, while many of the rest will be fooled into thinking they have a problem.
An example of an extreme version of this is the number of guys who think something is wrong with them if they aren't surrounded by scantily-clad and very willing beautiful women. The reality is that beautiful women don't look like models until they've had their hair, makeup, and clothing professionally done, and had the images digitally manipulated, and they don't bother doing all that unless they have a reason like getting paid (this is something I've verified from personal experience socializing with women who get paid to look beautiful). And of course these false images of how ordinary women supposedly look are also used to convince beautiful women that they aren't beautiful unless they buy a bunch of expensive products.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17 2020, @04:03AM
> So now we are told that double glazing is rubbish and we should rip it all out and replace it with triple glazing.
The increase in insulation from the third pane is primarily from the extra air space. We added a layer of plastic window film inside our old double pane windows (Anderson wood frame windows, from the 1960s). While the instructions on the 3M film package say to remove the film every spring, we have found that the film is good for five years or longer if we carefully clean the area where the double stick tape is laid down.
After a few years, some of the film loosens up (wrinkles) and we take five minutes to tighten it with a hair dryer. We also tried an off-brand film kit, but concluded that the extra price for 3M was worth it--lasts longer so we don't have to re-install so often.
The advantage is obvious on cold days when cooking (high inside moisture) -- the double pane windows formed condensation (and started to mold), windows with the extra layer mostly stay dry.
If I was building new, I'd probably future-protect (against high heating costs) with triple pane from the start, perhaps with suitable IR reflecting coatings. For our 50+ year old house, the plastic film is a useful improvement, without throwing away perfectly good windows.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by toddestan on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:08PM
That seems to be one of the problems with our system. Once a product has basically been perfected and market has matured - then where does a company go after that? The pressure is to keep on growing, and one way to do that is to keep adding increasingly useless features to the product and market the hell out of them to try to create demand. And if you don't do that, your competitors will.
Software is probably one of the biggest examples of that, as software never goes bad or wears out so software companies don't have replacement sales to rely upon. There's so many commercial software packages - Windows, Office, anything Adobe makes - that were pretty much perfected 10-20 years ago and everything since then has been mostly useless features, extra bloat, eye candy, and change for the sake of change, mostly to try to convince people to pay money for upgrades. That's not to say there hasn't been the occasional minor feature or tweak that wasn't an improvement, but the problem is those aren't enough to get people with the old version to shell out money.
Of course, there are other ways software companies have come up with to try to keep money flowing in - only offering paid subscriptions, planned obsolesce, deliberate introduced interoperability issues, putting ads into software I paid for (I'm looking at you Windows 10), and other bullshit that mostly just pisses me off.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:41PM (1 child)
You miss one of the major points of ads - something that is literally marketing 101. The point of an effective ad is not to make somebody rush out to buy something, it's to put a positive perception of a product in somebody's mind. This has a subconscious effect such that people associate the given product with being, as you said, "good quality" even if it's not really true. Apple is the perfect example, though perhaps they're who you're referencing with the planned obsolescence mention. They actually started obfuscating [cultofmac.com] their exact advertising budget in 2016 as it's skyrocketed into the billions of dollars.
I think many people would view Apple as good quality. Yet ask them why and it will rarely be based on anything technical or logical. It'll generally just devolve to an appeal to 'everybody knows' Apple is good quality. That's the result of billions of dollars of highly effective marketing. Nike is another example with the same story. They make good quality shoes but they're treated as being in a league of their own when, in practice, I suspect if you did a blind test of mid-range Chinese sneakers vs ultra-end Nike stuff with all labeling/indicators removed and a year of wearing, people wouldn't be able to reliably pick which is which. I have some of those Chinese ones. Bought them for $15 - absurdly comfortable shoes that have lasted me years. Same story for Coke and just about every major company.
Marketing is much more about psychological manipulation than people understand. In general very few people think they're actually affected by ads, yet hugely profitable companies continue to spend literally trillions of dollars on advertising. One side is wrong. Guess who.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday January 16 2020, @05:10PM
FWIW, I consider Apple hardware to be good quality, because the last Apple hardware I bought, and the previous also, was good quality. I'm a lot less impressed by the quality of their software for the same reason. But I won't buy Apple, because the last time I did they tried to slip a license change in to the system on a "security upgrade".
But I still think of them as making quality hardware, despite having avoided them for over a decade now.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Bot on Thursday January 16 2020, @05:10PM
BTW did they try correlating with the economy?
Bad economy, producers try investing more in ads, people unhappy because bad economy starts reflecting into their life with uncertainty, loss of jobs or no pay increases.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday January 17 2020, @02:28AM
I don't know, it makes sense to me. Virtually all advertising is designed to generate a sense that you're lacking something, and that buying the advertised product will somehow fill that lack. Sometimes the lack is actually of the awesome product being offered... but there aren't actually all that many product awesome enough that just knowing it exists makes you want it. Most products instead take a more indirect approach, generating a sense of lack of some combination of sex, power, wealth, youth, beauty, social life, fun, happiness, etc., and then implying through context that buying their product will somehow satisfy that lack.
The more ads you watch (and the better-crafted they are), the more often and effectively the advertisers are able to reach inside your head and momentarily make you just a little less satisfied with your life than you were a moment ago. I can easily see how overall satisfaction would suffer under a constant onslaught of such psychological attacks.
(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.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 16 2020, @02:07PM (1 child)
If you watch TV late at night you will be bombarded with ads for fast food. You will get hungry. You will eat high calorie food right before bed time, the worst possible time of day to eat rich food. You will gain weight, and incur all the health issues that accrue with obesity.
Ads also constantly tell you that unless you own their product or use their service you will be lesser than those that do. Humans are social creatures, so that pushes a primal button that ramps up everyone's stress.
There are effective measures you can take to nearly eliminate your exposure to ads and become a happier person:
1) Cut the cord. Get rid of cable TV. Watch videos on Netflix, Prime, or BitTorrent.
2) Stop reading newspapers and magazines. (few Soylentils probably still do, but it's a general recommendation)
3) Stop listening to the radio. (if you listen to streaming online, there are often clients that strip out ads)
4) Use adblockers in your browser.
Essentially, eliminate mass media from your life, those channels of information that are infested with ads, and your overall exposure to ads will shrink to almost nothing. You'll still see out-of-home ads like billboards and posters, but those are less obtrusive.
Advertisers will keep trying to insinuate themselves into every aspect of your life, but now we have tools to block them or route around them.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday January 16 2020, @03:03PM
I record TV programs, watch later and fast-forward through the ads. I'm not tempted by fast food anyway, chocolate biscuits are my thing with late night TV.
I live in the sticks and my nearest town, a 20 minute drive, is a historic place that does not permit public adverts. The only ads I see in town are at point of sale in shops, and I don't even go into shops very often. I don't generally see ads unless I deliberately look for them, eg when searching on-line for a plumber. That is how things should be.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 16 2020, @02:19PM (5 children)
I tune out advertising completely. I turn my speakers all the way down on a youtube ad. If I am listening to the radio in my car and there is an ad I change stations or turn off the radio. If watching TV (I don't watch much TV because of the ads) I turn down the volume and do something else. I have absolutely zero tolerance for advertising.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday January 16 2020, @03:24PM (2 children)
I doubt so.
So you actually see the ad, you just don't hear it. Anyway, you could do better; adblockers can completely remove the ads from YouTube.
So you at least hear the beginning of the ad. Well, I only listen to radio stations that don't have ads to begin with (unless you count the program previews). Of course those might not be available in your country.
I generally only watch TV stations that don't show ads, or watch them only at times when they don't show ads. The only time when I might catch some TV ad is right before the main news (but usually I switch on right on time for those, so I don't see the ads anyway). Again, availability may be a problem in your country.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Rich26189 on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:20PM (1 child)
My primary browser is Safari which to my knowledge doesn't have an effective AdBlocker though I haven't looked very hard. What I do have is a host file with about 20K entries - don't remember what I got it. When watching YT videos most, but not all, of the ads appearing at the bottom of the screen appear to me as just a white outline of the box plus the "x" to close it. I don't know how to determine the IP's of those ads that do get through.
When the in-video ads interrupt the video I just hit the mute button and watch the count-down timer. Again, I don't know how to determine the IP of those ads.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:25PM
Then stop using the corporate slop browser.
Use some firefox derivative.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:34PM
I also have zero tolerance for ads. I make efforts to avoid ads, but doubt it is completely effective. I haven't watched TV (in the classic sense) for a very long time now.
I despise ads as a blight upon humanity.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday January 17 2020, @12:05AM
youtube has ads???
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Thursday January 16 2020, @03:07PM (3 children)
The methodology seems to be similar to the one used to prove that the storks delivers the babies. [robertmatthews.org]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday January 16 2020, @05:22PM (2 children)
While correlation is not causation, it's a good hint that there's likely to be some causal relationship involved. In the case of ads there are so many causes of why they might make people unhappy that it's hard to chose which is the most significant.
No, this doesn't prove their case. But it means it's consistent with known evidence. There might be some other driving factor involved, and you are welcome to try to come up with a plausible one.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday January 17 2020, @04:10AM (1 child)
> While correlation is not causation, it's a good hint that there's likely to be some causal relationship involved.
No. No, it's not at all. You completely failed to understand "correlation is not causation". Out of all possible correlations, a minuscule proportion of them indicate a direct causal relationship. This can even be proven mathematically. For example, given one event that causes two events, and each of those causes two events, and so on, the total number of correlations among all the events is n*(n-1) (roughly n^2), and the total number of causations is 2n.
Realistically, the chance of correlation being due to direct causation is less than winning the lottery multiple times consecutively.
What correlation indicates is a potential area for further research.
> there are so many causes of why they might make people unhappy that it's hard to chose which is the most significant.
There are also factorials more causes where it's not the ads making people unhappy, but some unrelated factor (e.g., the weather or the proportion of tomatoes in industrial farming) that indirectly cause both ad spending and unhappiness.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Funny) by darkfeline on Friday January 17 2020, @04:13AM
I fucked up the math there because I'm slightly tipsy. A more sober Soylentil is welcome to fix it. My point still stands however.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ilsa on Thursday January 16 2020, @03:34PM (1 child)
There's another aspect to that bombardment that I don't think is being considered. If you put out the occasional ad to advertise whatever, ok, great. You may well be introducing a new product that never occurred to me would even exist, and I can appreciate that.
But that's not what happens. We're *bombarded* with ads. Every street corner. Every form of media. And because of the sheer number of ads being displayed, they feel they need to compete for eyeballs. Depending on the media you're consuming, the quantity of advertising can outweigh the actual content by an order of nagnitude (spelling intentional). Ads now pop up and cover your whole screen. Or are loud videos. If you watch TV, you'll notice that commercials play at double the volume of the show you were watching, with the express purpose of jarring your attention.
Advertisements have been come an insatiable jarring drain on everyone's psyche, constantly and permanently demanding your attention as if they were somehow entitled to it. Advertising has become a relentless mental war of attrition that is guaranteed to wear us down. It's the attention economy even before you start factoring in the shenanigans that Bookface et al have been playing.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday January 16 2020, @05:24PM
And it's important to remember that political ads are still ads. And have the same, or worse, effect.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 16 2020, @03:48PM (1 child)
It certainly helps keep the Malware away.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 16 2020, @03:51PM
That should have been "An adblocker a day keeps the doctor away?"
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:15PM (2 children)
but about product associations.
It's not like Coca Cola advertises the organic processes their sugar (HFCS that is...) is made with, or how the scientists meticulously perfected the process for their coca leaf flavouring extracts - they just show happy (diverse too, these days) people to associate with the product. Your brain can't unsee the association once it was seen.
Fortunately for my happiness, I'm somewhat mentally allergic to the happiness shown in advertisements. Particularly beer advertisments with happy football (soccer to you 'merkins) watchers in hip bars, where the ad climaxes in trying to transport the excitement when the team scores. These make we want to become a hooligan in my old days, just for the sake of crashing such parties with some nice third-half ultra-violence to achieve peace of mind. :)
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday January 17 2020, @10:21AM (1 child)
Unfortunately for them, the people shown in the ads I see (I do glimpse some when I'm fast forwarding through the ads of a TV recording) are people I don't identify with.
One that comes to mind (in the UK) is a dork who walks along the road with near-miss accidents happening around him, like a building just collapsing behind him and an open man-hole cover being replaced just before he steps on it. He remains oblivious of what is going on and finally walks into a bar and orders the cider being advertised. But why would I want to be like this idiot Darwin Award wannabee?
I also notice a high proportion of black actors in the ads, much higher than in the UK as a whole. Is this simply out of fear of being criticised by the PC brigade, or is it because they think black people are more gullible to this shit? Rarely see an Indian, perhaps as they are seen as untrusworthy (largely thanks to Indian phone scammers). You do see young Asian women, perhaps because they are seen as non-threatening and cute.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday January 18 2020, @06:48PM
I can't speak for the cider ad you're talking about, but in the US, when I rarely watch TV I've noticed a lot of ads that are basically "here's a funny skit, now buy this beer/car insurance/gizmo/whatever". Some - to me at least, seem to be total non sequiturs, where there seems to be little relation between the skit and the product/service they are advertising. They also seem to contain a bunch of inside jokes and references. Perhaps if I was a TV junkie and had been seeing these ads and characters for years I might get the joke, but they mostly leave me going "huh?". Or perhaps I'm just too out of touch with pop culture now.
I'm not sure what their reasoning is. Perhaps they are hoping that if their commercials are entertaining enough, people might watch them instead of just using a DVR to skip them. However, if you try to watch a football game (American football), which now take about 3.5 hours to broadcast thanks to all the ads, you'll see the same tired skits at least a dozen times.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:16PM (2 children)
No kidding they make us unhappy. Over the last 50 years or so the same tactics used in overseas (and domestic...) propaganda have found their way into advertising. Then there's the fact that ads play louder than the actual content they're bookending, how many of them there are, how fast-paced and insistent they are, and *then* there's the sheer inhuman cynicism of their approach, knowing they have a captive audience. And as at least one other poster mentioned, knowing we're being bullshat or outright lied to is itself stressful. I've not owned a TV in 15 years, use powerful adblocker/script-blocker plugins, don't listen to radio, and in general do all I can to shield myself from ads, and it works.
The thing is, most people are fucking dumb. They won't think "what do I need, who is selling it, where are the best deals?" They are effectively outsourcing decisions about their spending, and when someone is in that kind of suggestible mental state, yes, the high-volume saturation bombing campaigns do work eventually.
I've been viewing ads and what gets marketed to us proles with increasing horror and anger over the last couple of decades. The high-handed disdain in which the ordinary American is held is blood-boiling. The system has long since gotten away from us and our ability to control; even our perception is for sale, it seems.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 16 2020, @04:39PM
Sounds like you need a nice ride in a luxury SUV, friend. Imagine the smooth cornering while viewing waterfalls with dolphins and elephants heralding you as you pass. Nice, cool, and doing your bit for the environment.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday January 16 2020, @06:57PM
We've heard references to the "war for hearts and minds" going on outside of US borders. What isn't mentioned is that it started inside those borders, with the same tactics and the same false "us vs. them" dichotomy behind it, and with much the same disdainful response on the part of those smart enough to see past the smoke show. Respect is earned, and while they may be commercially successful, ad agencies and their clients are failing to earn it, which is why they have to work so hard. If you need proof, look no further than the disclaimers that these ad networks publish about the malware that gets hosted on their distribution systems.
Ads are micro-aggressions in a war against the whole world, afflicting everyone without an effective blocker strategy. How many people do they kill in combined person-years wasted? I have a TV, but I use it only as a 4k PC monitor and gaming console display; I've long since opted out of the mandatory ad-watching ecosystem. I don't doubt the results of this study for a moment.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 16 2020, @07:23PM
Yes, advertisements make people unhappy. That's the point.
I heard this somewhere. I can't remember where (maybe back during marketing classes at university? Or maybe one of those "let's analyze this industry" type podcasts, or something), but it sounds true to me. "Happy people don't buy things."
If a person is happy with their life, why would they want to change it? They are happy.
If a person is unhappy ("my sock has a hole in it and it irritates my heel in my shoe," "I have wrinkles, none of the cool kids have wrinkles," "I'm hungry," etc), they will buy something to fix that.
It can be something which is beneficial to the user ("I forgot, it has been 10 years since I last saw my doctor for a checkup"), something benign ("I feel like eating chicken for lunch now"), or something parasitic ("OMG, if I don't get the latest designer jeans, I'll literally die of shame"). In the end, though, one of the most effective ways of advertising is convince a person their life is not as good as it could be, if only they had X, too.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday January 16 2020, @08:38PM (2 children)
Legalizing advertising is the ultimate degenerate attack and subjugation mechanism on the entire society in which it exists.
-increase interruptions, decrease useful trains of thought
-get everyone used to constant disinformation, hearing lies
-degenerate the language with brand names
-advertisements seek out and monopolize all additions to culture, turn them into cliche overnight
-establish entire class of people who doesn't work and only concentrates on deception
-constant blinking lights
-constant illusions
-dragging of credible public personalities through mud
-foisted on the rich by the poor
-prevents long discussions on any televised journalism
-gives huge advantage to huge companies, to steal ideas of smaller enterprises
-news based on ads generates tiny overton windows of allowable discussion so the ads arent ruined by the atrocities of the people who buy them
Advertising and its degenerate alternate name 'marketing' is poison. If you are considering advertising, ask first 'Am I trying to poison everyone because I hate human beings' and if yes, then legalize advertising.
All of it should belong in catalogs or the stores themselves for people who are shopping, not plastered over my reality.
Advertising is a key element in the Uniform Degenerating Force that is affecting every culture of humans on planet earth and probably wherever else there are humans, to the extent whatever depraved overlords intend to create a dystopia there as well.
The superior form is art, and anyone who is a good enough artist does not need advertisement, consider if you dare:
https://archive.is/ULMpO [archive.is] (mona lisa smile scene)
https://archive.is/L7LfU [archive.is]
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday January 17 2020, @12:27AM (1 child)
I'll see your Mona Lisa Smile and raise one Bill Hicks. [genius.com]
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday January 17 2020, @12:19PM
I don't need to look up things that are tatoottooed deep in my brain. :)
But you are correct to notice I am coming from the same school of thought.
That website is cancer though, so meta. 'we are the brand genius itself and we give out iq chits like carnival tokens' I have same to say about the 'genius' bar. Every company is always trying, under our current marketing ruled system, to associate every positive word in the english language with their private tyrannical financial entity as a categorical imperative, undercutting all language, nothing is sacred or reserved for actual use by actual people.
Uniform Degenerating Force
they have one for me they have one for you
you might enjoy my semantic oddyssey
https://jmichaelhudson.net/important-definitions [jmichaelhudson.net]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17 2020, @03:41AM (1 child)
of sumbliminal advertising. Great job keeping it from public consciousness. Trillions spent, an extensive documented framework for control exists. You can learn it but beware it is weird shit. Seems one thing people automatically discount is the idea that someone else is remotely controlling them ((how convenient)).
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday January 17 2020, @12:36PM
But if you mention it, it's no longer subliminal!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by stretch611 on Friday January 17 2020, @11:37AM
If the amount of advertising is an inverted ratio to happiness, that means SoylentNews is one of the happiest sites on the whole WWW.
Isn't that right? Of course, I am asking the really happy people here that are so inspirational to the good mood that they give to everyone else...
like...
Ethanol-fueled
Phoenix666
aristarchus
And the ultimate happy user is the always joyous, Anonymous Coward.
=)
Please forgive me if I forgot to add your happy name to the list as I can only type so much.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P