I hate commercials

[Alien826]

So the pressure on TV channels / distributors is IMMENSE to develop new solutions that makes it impossible to fast forward commercials. Even after you have recorded it.

I find it difficult to understand how forcing people to watch ads they don't want to watch would have any effect other than to put them off the products. What you say in the next post may be the answer though.

Way back in the 1950s I read a book by Vance Packard called The Hidden Persuaders. It was an eye opener to me. I can only guess how much more skilled they now are are pressing our buttons.

Yep. This is quietly condoned at the moment even though their terms of service don't allow it.
It is condoned ONLY because the race of gathering subscriptions is still ongoing.
That too is a finite story.

I predict that within the next 5 years, the sharing of accounts will be rendered pretty much impossible (at least without paying extra.) on all streaming services.

I do understand this. Whereas a household may have many people watching on one subscription, I don't think it's fair to include uncle George in Patagonia. They have to make money, and that's OK.

 

[Alien826]

You know... ads work not because of the content of the ad.
It actually matters little what the ad says.

What matters is the excessive repeat of the brand name.

Say you see a commercial a couple times in one week.
And 2 weeks later, all you remember is the brand or product name and not a thing about how the ad goes...
Then it's "mission accomplished".

The content only really matters in the sense that it can't give you negative energy that you then associate with the brand.

In the "advertising art", the best ads are those that you have completely forgotten about, while remembering the brand / product without a negative connotation.

A question to an expert ... I always enjoy talking to someone who actually knows stuff about the subject in hand.

Does it help to mute the sound? I find that with a lot of ads these days they have got so subtle about the product that we have guessing games about what it is they are advertising, then watch it with the sound to see who wins.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Personally, I can't ever recall buying anything at all where the desire was created by an ad. It may have happened, but generally I'm way too pragmatic for that. (I'm a cheap _______.) But yes, I know what you said makes sense for many many people. It's subliminal. Advertising works, but not for everyone.

Sometimes ads can be very subtle. for example the cattle industry has had a series "Beef, it's what's for dinner" or some related catch phrase. They had a narrator with a nice cowboy drawl and video of really good looking beef dishes. That is all. I am thinking how tasty some of them would be right now from the memories. That sort of ad that promotes a general group but not anyone brand can be very effective.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You know... ads work not because of the content of the ad.
It actually matters little what the ad says.

What matters is the excessive repeat of the brand name.

Say you see a commercial a couple times in one week.
And 2 weeks later, all you remember is the brand or product name and not a thing about how the ad goes...
Then it's "mission accomplished".

The content only really matters in the sense that it can't give you negative energy that you then associate with the brand.

In the "advertising art", the best ads are those that you have completely forgotten about, while remembering the brand / product without a negative connotation.

Right now my DVR makes it easy for me. It records some shows and "knows" when the commercials begin and end. I can hit the fast forward button and put down the remote. It automatically stops a few seconds away from the end of the last commercial. I was rather surprised that the cable company included that in the software that is part of their package.

 

[vulcanlogician]

Once you kind of sit there and soak in how a commercial manipulates you and diminishes your existence for its own avaristic purposes, they become something truly disgusting to behold.

Luckily, those moments of clarity are rare, and we can kind of let that aspect of commercials drift out of our awareness most of the time. Otherwise, media would be nigh intolerable to watch.

But seeing it once is enough to make a lasting impression, and I completely understand where OP is coming from.

 

[Vinayaka]

Sometimes ads can be very subtle. for example the cattle industry has had a series "Beef, it's what's for dinner" or some related catch phrase. They had a narrator with a nice cowboy drawl and video of really good looking beef dishes. That is all. I am thinking how tasty some of them would be right now from the memories. That sort of ad that promotes a general group but not anyone brand can be very effective.

lol a poor example for me, a vegetarian of 50 years, but yes I get the subtlety

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Personally, I can't ever recall buying anything at all where the desire was created by an ad. It may have happened, but generally I'm way too pragmatic for that. (I'm a cheap _______.) But yes, I know what you said makes sense for many many people. It's subliminal. Advertising works, but not for everyone.

You will likely disagree... But I submit that, just like everyone else, you have bought certain brands because advertising imprinted the brand name in your brain.

I think almost nobody buys a product as a direct result of seeing a specific ad.
Advertising is about branding, about raising awareness that a certain brand is out there.

For example, if I go to a store for say potato chips...
There's a whole ally full of them. 20 different brands. And I'm the kind of guy who has "choice stress". If they are 20 brands that I never heard off, I "panic" (by lack of a better word) and don't know what to buy.

But I will know a few of the brands. Lays being the main one.
And yes, it is a bit more expensive, like a neglectable 20 cents, then all the other unknown brands. But I'm not the kind of guy who's going to spend half an hour research 19 brands just to see what's what for a bag of chips of what... 2 bucks?

So... I'll just go for the name that I know. Lays.
And I'll know the name because they will have spend millions in ads to make sure I know the name.

I don't buy Lays because I saw the commercial and though it was cool or whatever.
I just buy it because I know the name, while I don't know all the others.

And it's pretty much the same with everything.
When looking for a smartphone, I'll look at Nokia, Sony, LG,...
I will not even bother looking at phones that carry a brand I never heard off.

People like familiarity.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I find it difficult to understand how forcing people to watch ads they don't want to watch would have any effect other than to put them off the products.

From what I remember from my extra marketing class (more specifically "the psychology of product design, placement and advertising"), that negativity reflects primarily on the channel that is broadcasting the ads.

Way back in the 1950s I read a book by Vance Packard called The Hidden Persuaders. It was an eye opener to me. I can only guess how much more skilled they now are are pressing our buttons.

Ow ... I could write my own book on that subject.
In all honesty, most people can't even imagine just HOW skilled tech has become at pressing our buttons.
All that know-how exists today in the form of algorithms used by facebook, twitter, instagram, google, etc etc etc.

Off course, you need to be hooked to social media for it to work. And off course, the very product design of social media is geared 120% towards getting people addicted to it. The software engineers LITERALLY have psychologists in their team, whose sole purpose of being on that team is to help the UI designers in exploiting human psychological weaknesses.

The "like" button, the endless scroll list, the "you might like this also" links,.... all of it has only one goal: to keep your eyes hooked to your screen for the better part of the day. Useless "notifications" exist only to get you to get your device out of your pocket again.

People don't believe it when I tell them... but it's true: if facebook feels like you should be eating pizza tonight... believe you me... you WILL be eating pizza tonight.

People believe me even less when I tell them that additional abuse of these algorithms and data, is how Trump got elected and how Brexit happened. Both campaigns had the very same team "campaigning" on social media through millions of data points that were essentially "stolen" from facebook, with which they created psychological profiles of users. Then those users received "notifications" and "ads" of which the content was tailored specifically for them to push their buttons and literally manipulate them into voting for Trump / Brexit.

If you wish to learn more, google "Cambridge Analytica". Netflix also has a documentary from a whistleblower from that team who regrets what he has done.


I can only advice everyone to stay away from social media as much as possible.
If it were upto me, honestly, I'ld destroy their business model through heavy regulation and make their data collection and data manipulation literally illegal.

It is undermining democracy BIG TIME.
In fact....these tactics come straight out of a playbook of the military. It's essentially a tool for psychological warfare.

I do understand this. Whereas a household may have many people watching on one subscription, I don't think it's fair to include uncle George in Patagonia. They have to make money, and that's OK.

I agree. But in the meantime, I sure am paying less.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

A question to an expert ... I always enjoy talking to someone who actually knows stuff about the subject in hand.

Does it help to mute the sound? I find that with a lot of ads these days they have got so subtle about the product that we have guessing games about what it is they are advertising, then watch it with the sound to see who wins.

I don't know

I'm not an advertiser or into it. I've just had some classes about the psychology behind it.
I'ld guess that the answer to your question would depend on the answer to "when muted, do you still walk away with the brand name imprinted into your subconscious?"

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Right now my DVR makes it easy for me. It records some shows and "knows" when the commercials begin and end. I can hit the fast forward button and put down the remote. It automatically stops a few seconds away from the end of the last commercial. I was rather surprised that the cable company included that in the software that is part of their package.

Back in the day, my VCR did the same!
The TV stations would broacast a "code" along with the show/movie. That code was also mentioned in the paper tv guide (no internet back then lol).

And to program a recording, you could simply input that code.
It would start recording when that code was broadcasted and stop when the code broadcasting stopped.
And the result was literally a full movie with no commercial breaks (the code wasn't broadcasted during commercials).

It was amazing. Like if you just bought the movie at the store.

The good old days..............

 

[Vinayaka]

You will likely disagree... But I submit that, just like everyone else, you have bought certain brands because advertising imprinted the brand name in your brain.

I think almost nobody buys a product as a direct result of seeing a specific ad.
Advertising is about branding, about raising awareness that a certain brand is out there.

For example, if I go to a store for say potato chips...
There's a whole ally full of them. 20 different brands. And I'm the kind of guy who has "choice stress". If they are 20 brands that I never heard off, I "panic" (by lack of a better word) and don't know what to buy.

But I will know a few of the brands. Lays being the main one.
And yes, it is a bit more expensive, like a neglectable 20 cents, then all the other unknown brands. But I'm not the kind of guy who's going to spend half an hour research 19 brands just to see what's what for a bag of chips of what... 2 bucks?

So... I'll just go for the name that I know. Lays.
And I'll know the name because they will have spend millions in ads to make sure I know the name.

I don't buy Lays because I saw the commercial and though it was cool or whatever.
I just buy it because I know the name, while I don't know all the others.

And it's pretty much the same with everything.
When looking for a smartphone, I'll look at Nokia, Sony, LG,...
I will not even bother looking at phones that carry a brand I never heard off.

People like familiarity.

I don't buy chips. I don't own a phone. I do read reviews and shop around on more expensive stuff. As for the grocery store I go to, I go there because it's up to 20% cheaper overall. You may find it hard to believe, but there are consumers that are not affected by advertising. When we bought our new car last year, we test drove 5 vehicles, knew almost exactly what we wanted, slept on it for a few days, and then bought the one we liked. Heck, I didn't even go by brand loyalty. All that said, there may be one or two items in this house whose purchase was influenced by advertising. I certainly can't think of any offhand.

But I do understand how advertising works with most consumers ... just not all of them. Part of that is that I'm very much a minimalist. My summer dress jacket is Dad's old one, and he passed away 12 years back. On the way to the donation center, my brother casually asked if I wanted anything, and I saw the jacket.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Muah Ha ha!!!

That's hitting below the belt.

Ouch!

The only dread I had going into Toronto.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That's hitting below the belt.

Ouch!

The only dread I had going into Toronto.

Why Toronto?

 

[Alien826]

What about those ads for charities though?

The Shriner's hospital ads (probably not seen outside the USA) are, in my opinion brilliant. Don't you just feel you know these kids? And "only" $19 a month to show you "care"? What sort of monster wouldn't "care" about these sweet kids? My charitable contributions are pretty much decided each year, but if they weren't wouldn't I be drawn to the Shriner's kids? Well maybe, except for that nagging question. How much of my $19 goes to pay for the ads?

Then there's the Liberty Mutual emu. I love that bird! Unfortunately for them my choice of car insurer is made on a financial basis (subject to a study of how they handle claims, more important than premium level imo). Oh, and the fact that my brother in law is an insurance agent ....

Farmers insurance was great with those amusing stories of odd claims they had. Then the guy wouldn't give the little girl a balloon. Give me a break, who cares if her parents have been insured with Farmers for at least a year? Give her a f*cking balloon! I'd still consider them if I were looking for insurance ... though there's still my brother in law ...

And some ads are just so bad (from a sales pov). Remember the IHOP renaming fiasco? I still go to IHOP though, well, until the quality of the food went down at my local restaurant.

I like Village Inn for breakfast, great corned beef hash, but why didn't anyone tell them when they introduced a truncated form of their name that in the medical world VI stands for "vaginal infection"?

I could go on. ("Please don't" says the crowd).