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I and I am sure a good percentage of the internet population always struggle with articles like this. I don't have an ad blocker, don't have any 'ad-free' subsc

I and I am sure a good percentage of the internet population always struggle with articles like this. I don't have an ad blocker, don't have any 'ad-free' subscriptions to anything, yet I never click an ad while at the same time am not particularly bothered by them. They're just noise, and since they register as basically whitespace in my head, noise easily ignored. I don't feel 'at war' when I go online, and even if my attention is 'captured', it certainly doesn't translate to any purchased products or revenue for the 'aggressors'. That being said, I don't dismiss that it does occur: as Max Barry the author said, 'the industry is making multiple billions a year - that money comes from someone' (paraphrased). Just not from me.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
Just because you don't click on an ad or think you ignore them doesn't mean you're not being manipulated by them. Subconscious influence/manipulation is more powerful and prevalent than most people realize. The most skillful forms of influence are invisible to the target.
- shostack 9y ago
  Nor does it mean advertisers can't track your behavior after the fact. A conversion event post ad impression without a click is called a "view-through conversion" and is a cornerstone metric of most display advertising because the bulk of performance from display is likely to be view-through vs. click-based. Advertisers without "hard" conversion metrics can still measure uplift just as easily.
  - AdeptusAquinas 9y ago
    I would like to think that no, my spending tends to be largely on things that do not tend to be advertised (craft beer and bills, mainly). But no doubt you are right. Still, if its so passive that I can barely detect it happening, all power to them.
    - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
      > if its so passive that I can barely detect it happening, all power to them. So you don't care if people are manipulating you, so long as you are unaware?
    - 21 9y ago
      Craft beer has had huge uptake in recent years. You have to wonder how much of it's perceived authenticity is, well, authentic and how much is manufactured. So while your particular brand of craft beer might not spend one dollar on advertising, it's benefiting from the general upsurge. Apparently there is a book about it. Except: In The Craft Beer Revolution, Steve Hindy, co-founder of Brooklyn Brewery, tells the inside story of how a band of homebrewers and microbrewers came together in one of America's great entrepreneurial triumphs. Citing hundreds of creative businesses like Samuel Adams, Deschutes Brewery, New Belgium, Dogfish Head, and Harpoon, he shows how their combined efforts have grabbed 10 percent of the US beer market...
    - freshhawk 9y ago
      Which craft beers? Most of them are manufactured by huge corporate breweries. Do you own a car? What kind? Is it an older honda civic or something similar? In North America your choice of cars is almost certainly the result of advertising, both on you and on the people who's opinion about you you care about.
      - AdeptusAquinas 9y ago
        NZer here. Our craft beer is still mostly owned by small companies, with some notable recent exceptions. But for whatever reason I don't see ads for beer, either NZ or otherwise, online. I own a BMW, but have no interest in cars and so don't see car ads online (nor would they be effective - the BMW was chosen by my wife). I take your point, and I am not arguing I am the exception, however your specific examples probably don't apply. Maybe the choice of utility companies? Internet, power etc. We have more choices here than the US tends to have, due to the smaller market and more government regulated competition. It's hardly a dire violation of my personal liberty if I am manipulated into picking one or another provider of fibre though.
- freshhawk 9y ago
  It was a common saying when I worked adjacent to online advertising that "The guys who think it doesn't work on them are the biggest marks of them all". The reasoning was that they have no defenses and think because they don't click on ads (who does?) that they are immune to social pressure, cognitive biases around awareness, status concerns. After I heard this and started paying attention I'm completely sold, people who say this are never living lives that look remotely like they aren't affected by advertising. That's not even counting the fact that it doesn't have to work on everyone, just enough people so that those who don't conform are punished by becoming outsiders with all the social, financial and professional consequences that entails.
chipotle_coyote 9y ago
If we accept the article's premise (which I think I do), whether we click on the ads or even see the ads is irrelevant, though, isn't it? The need to get those ads in front of us changes the way publications write, edit, frame, and promote their stories.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

Just because you don't click on an ad or think you ignore them doesn't mean you're not being manipulated by them. Subconscious influence/manipulation is more powerful and prevalent than most people realize. The most skillful forms of influence are invisible to the target.

shostack 9y ago
Nor does it mean advertisers can't track your behavior after the fact. A conversion event post ad impression without a click is called a "view-through conversion" and is a cornerstone metric of most display advertising because the bulk of performance from display is likely to be view-through vs. click-based. Advertisers without "hard" conversion metrics can still measure uplift just as easily.
- AdeptusAquinas 9y ago
  I would like to think that no, my spending tends to be largely on things that do not tend to be advertised (craft beer and bills, mainly). But no doubt you are right. Still, if its so passive that I can barely detect it happening, all power to them.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    > if its so passive that I can barely detect it happening, all power to them. So you don't care if people are manipulating you, so long as you are unaware?
  - 21 9y ago
    Craft beer has had huge uptake in recent years. You have to wonder how much of it's perceived authenticity is, well, authentic and how much is manufactured. So while your particular brand of craft beer might not spend one dollar on advertising, it's benefiting from the general upsurge. Apparently there is a book about it. Except: In The Craft Beer Revolution, Steve Hindy, co-founder of Brooklyn Brewery, tells the inside story of how a band of homebrewers and microbrewers came together in one of America's great entrepreneurial triumphs. Citing hundreds of creative businesses like Samuel Adams, Deschutes Brewery, New Belgium, Dogfish Head, and Harpoon, he shows how their combined efforts have grabbed 10 percent of the US beer market...
  - freshhawk 9y ago
    Which craft beers? Most of them are manufactured by huge corporate breweries. Do you own a car? What kind? Is it an older honda civic or something similar? In North America your choice of cars is almost certainly the result of advertising, both on you and on the people who's opinion about you you care about.
    - AdeptusAquinas 9y ago
      NZer here. Our craft beer is still mostly owned by small companies, with some notable recent exceptions. But for whatever reason I don't see ads for beer, either NZ or otherwise, online. I own a BMW, but have no interest in cars and so don't see car ads online (nor would they be effective - the BMW was chosen by my wife). I take your point, and I am not arguing I am the exception, however your specific examples probably don't apply. Maybe the choice of utility companies? Internet, power etc. We have more choices here than the US tends to have, due to the smaller market and more government regulated competition. It's hardly a dire violation of my personal liberty if I am manipulated into picking one or another provider of fibre though.
freshhawk 9y ago
It was a common saying when I worked adjacent to online advertising that "The guys who think it doesn't work on them are the biggest marks of them all". The reasoning was that they have no defenses and think because they don't click on ads (who does?) that they are immune to social pressure, cognitive biases around awareness, status concerns. After I heard this and started paying attention I'm completely sold, people who say this are never living lives that look remotely like they aren't affected by advertising. That's not even counting the fact that it doesn't have to work on everyone, just enough people so that those who don't conform are punished by becoming outsiders with all the social, financial and professional consequences that entails.

chipotle_coyote 9y ago

If we accept the article's premise (which I think I do), whether we click on the ads or even see the ads is irrelevant, though, isn't it? The need to get those ads in front of us changes the way publications write, edit, frame, and promote their stories.