What's the point of adverts?

[Shadow Wolf]

Seriously, it's the way advertising works. It's meant to have a hook...something you'll associate with their product so when you're in stores you're thinking about their product, whether it be a jingle, a hot girl, a fast car, or a juicy burger that's being eaten seductively by a hot girl.

Are you more likely to remember the name of the dandruff shampoo name and the price by itself or the hot, wet, naked dark skinned girl rubbing it provocatively through her hair?

Yes, but there are real world consequences to it. They prey upon children, they have thoroughly warped and destroyed healthy, normal, average female bodies (and they're coming after men), it drives unsustainable consumerism, it's hardly any different or better than a televangelist demanding we give until it hurts so we're better off.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

When Nietzsche declared that god is dead and we killed him he asled what would we replace it with.
He'd probably be the first in line to resuscitate god if he knew we'd let corporations replace it with owning the material junk they tell us we need to have a more fulfilling and complete life. At least god wasn't devouring amd consuming and destroying the Earth.

 

[Alien826]

The first ads I hated were on TV in the 1950s, when ITV came out (in the UK). Before that, there were just billboard style ads, that were easy to ignore. I didn't hate them.

I now hate pretty much all ads. Ads that don't move or have sound I still tolerate. I avoid them with the following methods.

- Subscribe to ad-free services that I find to be worthwhile. Example: Netflix.
- Block ads on my internet browser. Any sites that don't allow that don't get read. So far there are always alternatives. By the way my ad blocker works on RF. If that changes I'll go elsewhere, I don't like to be too dependent on anything.
- On network TV, I mute the ads which I find removes most of the annoyance. Unfortunately, I still need to keep enough attention on the screen to know when the ads finish. I try little games to make the muted ads more bearable. For example. "Guess the product". These days it getting more and more difficult to know what the heck they are advertising, and it's even more difficult with no sound.
- Radio ads are the worst as you can't tell when to unmute them and they tend to very annoying, like car salesmen shouting at you, and DJs seem to think I tune in to listen to their inane remarks rather than listening to the music. My car radio stays off mostly. If I spent a long time in the car as I used to when I was employed, I'd listen to my own recorded music, I think.
- I simply avoid services that try to limit my ad-avoidance. For example, some channels won't let you fast forward through ads. I'd rather find the movie somewhere else or do without it than be forced to watch ads.
- Porn is generally available without ads, thankfully.

So there you are. Obsessive? Moi?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The first ads I hated were on TV in the 1950s, when ITV came out (in the UK). Before that, there were just billboard style ads, that were easy to ignore. I didn't hate them.

I now hate pretty much all ads. Ads that don't move or have sound I still tolerate. I avoid them with the following methods.

- Subscribe to ad-free services that I find to be worthwhile. Example: Netflix.
- Block ads on my internet browser. Any sites that don't allow that don't get read. So far there are always alternatives. By the way my ad blocker works on RF. If that changes I'll go elsewhere, I don't like to be too dependent on anything.
- On network TV, I mute the ads which I find removes most of the annoyance. Unfortunately, I still need to keep enough attention on the screen to know when the ads finish. I try little games to make the muted ads more bearable. For example. "Guess the product". These days it getting more and more difficult to know what the heck they are advertising, and it's even more difficult with no sound.
- Radio ads are the worst as you can't tell when to unmute them and they tend to very annoying, like car salesmen shouting at you, and DJs seem to think I tune in to listen to their inane remarks rather than listening to the music. My car radio stays off mostly. If I spent a long time in the car as I used to when I was employed, I'd listen to my own recorded music, I think.
- I simply avoid services that try to limit my ad-avoidance. For example, some channels won't let you fast forward through ads. I'd rather find the movie somewhere else or do without it than be forced to watch ads.
- Porn is generally available without ads, thankfully.

So there you are. Obsessive? Moi?

I hate those quiet pictures ads because they've invaded my private spaces at home. They're so insidious they even still advertise to me when I throw them in the garbage where they belong. Heavens forbid I get busy and thirsty amd forget I got a cheap drink at McDonald's and don't remember all those adjectives they want me to associate with cheap, flavored bubbly sugar water.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

For the record, using my browser on my phone Youtube didn't say a peep about my adblocker.

 

[Brickjectivity]

So YT has decided you cannot use adblock or you will be struck off.

This is absurd because I've just had 4 or 5 minutes worth of ads before a video. Ads before a video is fine, but 5 minutes? I use these videos to study to, how the hell am I meant to study with this blaring in the background every so often?

But more to the point, adverts... they seem to be aimed at persuading you to buy a product. I've kind of just figured this out. It took me forever to understand why 'hot' women are used in adverts aimed at men because I think too literally and understood that the woman does not come with the car so why is she on the ad.... apparently the car is meant to attract the woman. This is my first problem, manipulation in advertising. Given the above, it goes over my head thank God.

I thought the point of an advert is to inform you a product exists and if you need it you can buy it, for example, an advert should look like:

L'Oreal has released a new anti-dandruff shampoo.
It costs £2.99
Available at most shops.

That's it. That's all the information you need. No manipulation, no sex, no persuasion.

I hate adverts because they try to manipulate you into buying stuff, instead of informing you a useful product exists and where to find it.

If your product works you don't need to persuade folks to buy it, they will find it themselves.

If it does not work, do not sell it.

Or have I just destroyed the market?

I hadn't been using it since I stopped paying. I understood that adverts would eventually be on there. Somebody had to pay the power bill. Nevertheless I was not one to watch adverts.

When it comes time to use youtube again I'll just pay, because I don't do adverts.

 

[Subduction Zone]

For the record, using my browser on my phone Youtube didn't say a peep about my adblocker.

It may be coming. And I use a tablet at times without an adblocker. I almost never get ads. I cannot remember if I ever have.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It may be coming. And I use a tablet at times without an adblocker. I almost never get ads. I cannot remember if I ever have.

It might come. I hate ads so I avoid them to the point that should a website complain of my ad blocker I hit refresh and it shuts up.

 

[SalixIncendium]

They prey upon children...

They prey upon everyone...adults and children alike.

 

[exchemist]

It's not the ads, it's where they're placed and how loud, distracting and ill-thought out they are.

If they were at the start and end of videos, that's fine.

But I have ADHD and use these ambiences to concentrate and having ads halfway through might well ruin my study for the night. It's too much for me.

Ah, now that I did not realise - which is good!

If you use YouTube a lot and the ads wreck your concentration, you might need to consider the premium subscription that gets rid of the ads. But I see from this article it is not that cheap - £12/month: Is YouTube Premium worth a monthly subscription? Here’s what you need to know

I use YouTube for learning choral music (currently struggling with the Libera Me fugue, in Verdi's Requiem). I've never had more than about 30 secs of consecutive ads - certainly nothing like 5 mins. But I have good reflexes and when an ad comes on I instantly hit the mute button and look away, or focus on the "skip ad" button. So I find it doesn't get in the way that much. It's more of an irritation.

(I look forward to having a nice rant with you about ads when we meet in Edinburgh. Should help while away the bus journey.)

 

[Shadow Wolf]

They prey upon everyone...adults and children alike.

It's especially bad with children, and they do pump more time, research and money into childrens advertising with the goal of creating lifelong loyal customers. That predatory behavior is partly why Happy Meal toys became an issue.
Another example is how we widely and generally and frequently consider daily showering, with soap, and frequent hair washings with shampoo and conditioner, is a habit and belief we came to accept because companies like Palmolive redefined clean for us. Never mind we were ok with the occasional scrub in clean, often running water for most people for most our existence, and daily showering isn't good for our skin, and there's all the chemicals and stuff, we let companies trying to sell more soap tell us we stink if we didn't change our bathing habits. And we let them make us more scrubbed and more perfumed than anyone before us. We didn't even use soap on our bodies until people soap told us to, and hair fashion revolved around hair being washed every so often rather than daily washings.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Advertising is what keeps things like YouTube (and this very forum) free.

I always use quotes around the word "free" when it comes to "free" online services.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think it probably depends on how shallow you are.

Or maybe a male thing.

Rather a human thing.

Advertising is geared towards exploiting weakness in human psychology.
When it comes to heterosexual males, hot provocative women are the cheap and easy means to achieve results.

It matters not how "shallow" or not one is. A healthy heterosexual male will always notice the hot girl.
And in fact, to some extent it works on women also, who would like to be like the hot girl.

I like to think that I'm immune to advertisement. And I'm quite confident that it impacts me less then average Joe. But I'm not actually immune to it.
Regardless of how little attention I pay to it, it nevertheless gets burried deep down in my subconscious anyway.

If I need some product I haven't used before and am at the store and see 5 different brands at the same price point... chances are enormous that I'll have some type of bias towards the brand that is burried in my subconscious, which was put there through advertisement.


Nobody can escape the basics of human psychology. It's what makes us human.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I always use quotes around the word "free" when it comes to "free" online services.

The reason I don't is that unless I'm paying out of pocket for a product or service, it's free.

But I get your point. Time is an asset and if ads are using it, it can be argued that there is an expenditure of assets.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think it just plain silly to use a free platform and complain about the advertising revenue used to support it.

I don't complain about advertising revenue. However, I do complain about the data collection and invasion of privacy to make the advertisement more targetted and custom to be better suited to your psychological profile.

If you find the ads problematic, the solution is as simple as paying for premium service to remove ads or not using the platform at all.

True.

I make a point of staying as anonymous as possible on services like Youtube. I also don't have any "social media" accounts. I avoid them like the plague, to the best of my ability.

If you google my real name (or any other search platform), you will find literally nothing of relevance.
So proud of that.

And yes, every few weeks, I actually google my name to see if I accidentally left a trace somewhere, or to check if someone else did.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The reason I don't is that unless I'm paying out of pocket for a product or service, it's free.

But I get your point. Time is an asset and if ads are using it, it can be argued that there is an expenditure of assets.

What I actually meant is that you pay for these services with personal data, unless you go out of your way to make sure you don't.
And that doesn't actually change when you pay a fee to remove the ads. Your data is still collected when scrolling through youtube. And whenever you visit a website, that data will be used by google ads to serve you with advertisement.

The advertisement value of things like facebook, instagram, youtube, tiktok,... is not really the reach they have. It's the data they have on the users.

 

[anna.]

It's especially bad with children, and they do pump more time, research and money into childrens advertising with the goal of creating lifelong loyal customers. That predatory behavior is partly why Happy Meal toys became an issue.
Another example is how we widely and generally and frequently consider daily showering, with soap, and frequent hair washings with shampoo and conditioner, is a habit and belief we came to accept because companies like Palmolive redefined clean for us. Never mind we were ok with the occasional scrub in clean, often running water for most people for most our existence, and daily showering isn't good for our skin, and there's all the chemicals and stuff, we let companies trying to sell more soap tell us we stink if we didn't change our bathing habits. And we let them make us more scrubbed and more perfumed than anyone before us. We didn't even use soap on our bodies until people soap told us to, and hair fashion revolved around hair being washed every so often rather than daily washings.

Regarding children, it's why sugary cereal boxes are placed at kids' eye level on grocery store shelves.

Regarding bathing... I have to say I'm all for daily showering with soap, no advertising got me to that, it's personal preference. Now I might try a product I encounter, but since I don't read publications with beauty ads or watch programming with ads, I'm not likely to see it via advertising as much as just looking over a store selection for something that suits me.

But that's me, and I'm not a young person trying to find my way in the world, and I wouldn't want to be young in the digital age, my entire existence subject to filters and insta poses. The potential damage from that is enormous and unfortunately, largely self-inflicted, even if unknowingly.

Jessica DeFino is a great resource for how the entire beauty industry revolves around making women feel bad about themselves so they'll buy product.

The Review of Beauty by Jessica DeFino | Substack

The world's first Beauty publication! (Everything else is just about appearance.). Click to read The Review of Beauty by Jessica DeFino, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

jessicadefino.substack.com

 

[SalixIncendium]

And yes, every few weeks, I actually google my name to see if I accidentally left a trace somewhere, or to check if someone else did.

All I get when I google mine is a Tai Chi instructor (which I'm not).

 

[anna.]

What I actually meant is that you pay for these services with personal data, unless you go out of your way to make sure you don't.
And that doesn't actually change when you pay a fee to remove the ads. Your data is still collected when scrolling through youtube. And whenever you visit a website, that data will be used by google ads to serve you with advertisement.

The advertisement value of things like facebook, instagram, youtube, tiktok,... is not really the reach they have. It's the data they have on the users.

“If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.”​

 

[SalixIncendium]

What I actually meant is that you pay for these services with personal data, unless you go out of your way to make sure you don't.
And that doesn't actually change when you pay a fee to remove the ads. Your data is still collected when scrolling through youtube. And whenever you visit a website, that data will be used by google ads to serve you with advertisement.

The advertisement value of things like facebook, instagram, youtube, tiktok,... is not really the reach they have. It's the data they have on the users.

One could argue that data collection is useful, because the algorithm gears ads toward things one might actually use.

I'm typically bombarded with ASPCA ads on YouTube, for example. Not sure if it's because I donate or because of the content I watch. Probably the former because I don't see how NASCAR races and Vedanta lectures translate to the ASPCA.