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The only good ad is a dead one. With very few exceptions, especially in the consumer space, you won't need advertising if you actually need something. You'll s

The only good ad is a dead one. With very few exceptions, especially in the consumer space, you won't need advertising if you actually need something. You'll search it out or your friends will tell you what to buy. Advertising serves as a way for the capitalist class to exert veto power over other aspects of society by yanking funding at opportune moments (see the current Google snafu or Bill O'Reilly's departure from FOX (which was an example of this power being used for good indirectly via public pressure)). It also allows for shows of dominance, strength, and to move fucking product by creating an awareness moat vs your competitors. This means that people often already know they want to buy something, but they'll pick you instead of the other one which is fundamentally different from advertising performing a public service.

cft 9y ago
An anecdote from 2010: my company had racks of Rackable Systems servers. Every month a server went dead- power supply, board or some such. Rackable Systems were unreliable. Then on Slashdot I saw a square ad for IBM System X servers (unfortunately they have been sold to Lenovo a couple of years ago). That somehow made me do research- although I was aware of IBM System X before. Between 2010 and 1013 we bought perhaps 20 IBM System X servers (rock solid and beautifully engineered). Cost per that ad impression was perhaps $75,000.
- oiboabfljasbfo 9y ago
  I won't deny this has occasionally happened to me, but look at your example: it's B2B when my claim is primarily for B2C. B2B ads tend to be more targeted, aimed at corporations, and purchases are for higher dollar amounts. The product being sold was also competing based on build quality, a material improvement. Businesses often make more rational decisions because they can assign someone to do research (like you did of your own volition) who will make comparisons and think about it. Imagine the same process happening for shampoo. I'm sure there are some people that want "the best" shampoo, but most of the products are going to be nearly interchangeable and the marketing will try focus on various kinds of manipulation to dig that moat. These manipulations aren't what most people think of, like a sex symbol hypnotizing you. Instead they work to increase brand familiarity, social proof, and provide a life style narrative you can tell yourself and show off to other people with. The capital hiding behind these campaigns funds newspapers, television, radio, and civic centers. It acts as a filter on the public discourse. If you're interested, look up Manufacturing Consent for more information. Here's a clip from a documentary based on the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU
  - mozumder 9y ago
    Yah your argument against adverting is bullshit. Even consumers love ads. Did you know that they even pay money because they want ads? Those 900 pages of Vogue that they buy every September, do you think they're filled with articles? Because they're about 870 pages of fashion ads. People specifically buy them because of the advertising. And did you know Sunday papers are a thing, filled with coupons, that are basically ads? Sorry, but advertising serves a purpose that consumers actually pay money for.
    - crummy 9y ago
      I think people buy Vogue (and all other advertising-sodden media) despite the ads, not because of it.
      - zimpenfish 9y ago
        It would be an interesting experiment to put out a non-ad-subsidised version of Vogue and see how many people bought it. I would guess at "not that many".
        LeoNatan25 9y ago
        If it’s “900” pages of pure content, rather than ads, hell, even I’d buy it.
        zimpenfish 9y ago
        It's 900 pages of pure content ... but costs $95.
        Kiro 9y ago
        You're probably in minority though. It's like a catalogue. The "pure content" is just fluff.
        utexaspunk 9y ago
        Even if that "content" is boilerplate drivel like "25 Ways to Drive Him Wild in Bed!"?
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  Those ads were relevant though, and (I hope) not doing thousands of requests in the background; it was an IT-related ad, on an IT-related website, targeted at a person working in IT that was interested in new servers - what really is what the better ad providers are looking for. The rest is just idk, shotgunning and hoping something sticks.
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    I dislike relevant ads the most because they are most likely to influence my behaviour.
    - strken 9y ago
      There must be a point between "advertisement for useless junk" and "useful advice + an affiliate link" where the two cross over, and as far as I can tell the only differences are relevance and directness. One example of advertising that I think is acceptable are the ads on the slatestarcodex.com sidebar, which are manually placed there by the author and targeted directly at the niche he writes in. If a computer could achieve the same precision when choosing what ads to run, and based its choices on the publication rather than the user, I think it would also be acceptable to me. Would you find such ads equally unpalatable?
      - builditand 9y ago
        Ads are bad. I'm not shopping not stop. I just want to read my article or whatever I am doing at that moment. When I want to buy something I go to a shop and being there I still don't want ads. I want accurate specs, relevant statistics, maybe pictures and honest reviews. Sometimes I could use a guide, when it's not my domain. I never stopped in the middle of something to say "I'd so watch an ad right now".
        jalk 9y ago
        So perhaps you need to find paywalled news/review outlets without ads. Someone has to pay for the articles being written, servers, bandwidth etc
- icebraining 9y ago
  Maybe I'm being uncharitable, but what I read from that story is that advertising saved your company from its own incompetence, since it should have someone responsible for managing those servers and subsequently for doing research upon noticing the problems. For me, that example actually serves as an extra argument against ads.
  - bryanrasmussen 9y ago
    I think you're being uncharitable, advertising led the company to have a higher degree of competence and understanding.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Fine, but it seems like a terrible tradeoff for the drawbacks mentioned by oasfboasbfos.
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    Crikey, guy shares an anecdote of how an ad helped him and all you can do is be really nasty about it, it's completely unnecessary. I bought a piano course from Udemy because of advertising on FB (and then spent an additional £150 on a keyboard). I'm really enjoying it. Please tell me what a horrible human being I am.
    - tinus_hn 9y ago
      Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt like elderberries!
    - beefield 9y ago
      My gut feeling is that for every advertisement induced purchase you actually want and enjoy, there are several orders of magnitude more marketing/advertisement (directly or indirectly) induced purchases that are unnecessary or harmful.
      - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- petra 9y ago
  Electronic engineers face a similar problem, everyday:finding the optimal components to build stuff with. And at least in the case of standard components, they do that via parametric search tools(poring over many details), combined with vendors exposing a lot of details about products. And it works very well. I wish we had that in more fields. Would provide huge value, but it's a hard problem. But i suppose if with the right incentives(banning advertising ?), we could do it. The other source of info for EE's is education and PR, some of it probably pretty unbiased(at distributors sites), due to incentives. As for ads ? they exist, but they seem to play a relatively small role, and probably nothing major will change if they stopped existing.
  - beagle3 9y ago
    Can you point at such a search engine for EEs?
    - petra 9y ago
      Digikey.com for example, for microcontrollers: https://www.digikey.com/products/en/integrated-circuits-ics/embedded-microcontrollers/685?k=&pkeyword=&FV=ffe002ad&mnonly=0&ColumnSort=0&page=1&quantity=0&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=25 https://www.digikey.com/products/en/integrated-circuits-ics/...
  - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
    Parametric search tools are great for Digikey, but they're very hard to implement elsewhere. They're much less useful when you only have a small number of options. They're bad at quantifying qualitative properties like fit and finish or ease-of-use. And you can only compare closely related parts, because until you drill down to the level of, say, a parametric search for exclusively PMIC-Voltage Regulators-DC-DC-Switching controllers, it doesn't make sense to ask what the topology or output configuration is. Plus, it's extremely tedious to collate and filter all of the properties needed to make them work. Ebay and Amazon barely do it at all. Newegg and McMaster Carr do OK. Only EE components seem to be demonstrate the ideal parametric filter systems that negate the need for advertising. But I'm still a sucker for buying Linear Tech or TI components before, say, Maxim or Toshiba because even if the parametric search say that both options fit my requirements, the former seem to be better documented and more user-friendly than the latter. That's the kind of advertising you only get through years of writing expensive and high-quality technical papers and producing high-quality parts, and I suppose there will always be value in advertising that fact (or suggesting that fact, regardless of whether it's true for other advertisers) to less experienced engineers.
- kuschku 9y ago
  That’s why we need independent testing, and you should always check the independent tests before buying something. For example, whenever I need a new product, be it anything from a spoon to a car seat for a child, I’ll check Stiftung Warentest for full tests of that category. I’ll take the top 2 or 3, enter them on idealo or preispiraten or günstiger.de or hardwareschotte, and then I’ll take the cheapest of those. At no point in this purchasing process come ads into play, and I get the best results.
rabbitonrails 9y ago
Have you ever heard of multi-level marketing? Let's all buy what our friends tell us to buy.
- Simon_says 9y ago
  Come'on. When your friends don't have any vested interest, it works quite well.
  - Jedd 9y ago
    Agreed. Friends or colleagues who I know aren't materially invested but still have strong opinions are extremely compelling. My usual line of questioning when I have the luxury is to ask what features of $thing they don't like - usually more insightful than pros.
    - Simon_says 9y ago
      That's interesting. I do something similar with online reviews on Trip Advisor and Amazon: I filter to look at only 1-3 star reviews (or sometimes only 2 and 3 star reviews if there are enough). In my experience, positive reviews are all the same, but negative reviews will give really good specifics. Then you judge just the relative proportion of reviews that are positive vs. negative.
      - Jedd 9y ago
        I'm extra wary of TripAdvisor, Amazon, etc -- as I don't know the people making the reviews, and I tend to assume a fair amount of astroturfing. I'm not convinced that they haven't worked out how to game the reviews such that even the lower-rated reviews aren't positives in disguise, in a similar way to those interview questions along the lines of 'What's your biggest weakness?' -- "I am a perfectionist // I work too hard // I care too much // I need to make every project a success", etc. Typically anyone that bothers to select a thing for purchase will examine all the features and attributes that they consider important, but often overlook the negated aspects that only come from familiarity with the product.
recursive 9y ago
Everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them. And everyone is wrong.
- oiboabfljasbfo 9y ago
  My claim is that it does work. Astoundingly well. My further claim is that it is not in the public interest.
  - mozumder 9y ago
    No shit. The world isn't your personal charity for you. Advertisers don't owe you anything. But if you really want to get blown away, it actually does serve the public interest, because it increases commerce, and any sale is an increase in the GDP. Did you thank advertisers for growing the economy?
    - ionised 9y ago
      Do you think people owe advertisers a living?
      - thecrazyone 9y ago
        No you owe the content publishers a living if you're consuming their content else they go out of business. Ads is how content publishers make money. Advertisers in fact pay money for publishing their ads.
        ionised 9y ago
        Show me the contract that states what you just did and I'll agree.
        pbhjpbhj 9y ago
        Following your argument above, if the content publishers don't like it they should stop publishing content rather than enforcing your particular idea of an implicit contract. If not then your supposed liberalism is strongly biased against those who disprove of advertising.
dkersten 9y ago
> With very few exceptions, especially in the consumer space, you won't need advertising if you actually need something. You'll search it out or your friends will tell you what to buy. I typically use adverts to help me decide what to buy, but the adverts count as negative points towards the product, because I feel that if a product needs to rely on persuasion techniques, or to bombard my eyeballs all the time (especially if they're preroll-type adverts rather than passive banners) or if they're beside spammy adverts, then the product is likely crap anyway or the company are. Blame all the spam for this attitude, and all the obtrusive crap that is shown to me against my will each day (it seems that almost no matter where I look, online or physical world, I'm bombarded with someones shitty adverts)
- grkvlt 9y ago
  > adverts count as negative points towards the product > i use adverts to tell me what not to buy These sorts of attitudes seem odd. What products do thses people buy, since pretty much everything being sold in the west is advertised in some way? It seems like the sort of think someone would say as a sort of virtue signalling, but I can't believe its a policy anyone could stick to.
  - dkersten 9y ago
    I didn't say anywhere in my post that if I see an advert, the product is instantly blacklisted -- only that it counts as a negative. So, if I had to choose between two otherwise equal products, I would choose the one with the least (or least annoying/intrusive) advertisement. I also perhaps should have said web adverts. I don't much pay attention to TV/radio/magazine/newspaper/billboard adverts, so I imagine I buy many products advertised there. I'm also not saying I don't buy any products that are advertised or that adverts don't work on me, but rather that: 1) If I'm looking for a product, I'll search and read reviews and such, but if I see advertisements, it counts as a negative point. I may still buy the item if it doesn't have enough other negative points. 2) If I see the same irritating advert multiple times, I'll make a mental note to never buy it. A number of youtube preroll adverts have had this effect.
    - 9y ago
briandear 9y ago
This is total nonsense. Without advertising, how does a new competitor compete with the entrenched incumbents? How does anyone find out about your product? News media? Because media converage is often the result of having a paid PR firm pitching your story to reporters. Reporters then become the gatekeeper for what becomes successful or not. As far as word of mouth, that is very difficult to rely upon as a repeatable business model. For example, if a smaller local bakery competing with a larger and more popular local bakery starts to make birthday cakes but they didn’t before — how does anyone in the community find out about it since people that buy birthday cakes typically go to the incumbent because they have no idea that the smaller bakery is starting to make great birthday cakes as well? It’s going to take a lot of time before that smaller bakery starts selling some cakes because nobody will know to go there for that purpose. Advertising is precisely the tool that allows new market entrants to compete with the status quo. As another example how does anyone learn that they can run Windows on their Mac without Apple having advertised that fact? Tech writers? How do they find out? PR? PR is advertising too you know, a different kind, but it is still a paid effort to create market awareness of some product or service. As far as “searching it out” — let’s take searching on Google or Bing as an example — the top organic results are the result of years of SEO; a new incumbent would be buried on page 20 for perhaps years which means that company will die waiting for word of mouth to start to happen. Meanwhile some big competitor with the budget for the extensive content marketing maintains their market leading position because there is literally no way for the new company to ever be discovered. Advertising is critical if we are to have competition. If we want nothing but Soviet style companies, then sure, eliminate advertising. Good luck ever launching a new product or trying to disrupt anything especially in spaces where virility isn’t possible. A new, more effective adult diaper for instance — who’s going to run out and tell all their friends about that? How much does word of mouth influence a decision as to what car to buy? There’s some influence certainly, but my family of five has different needs than my single neighbor. So word of mouth isn’t so effective when discussing the finer points of 7 seat vehicles. So I search blogs? Ok, so what providers a blogger to review vehicles? Page views? For what? Bloggers will charge for subscriptions to read their content? Good luck with that. Micro payments could be a solution, but a company would still need to let the blogger know there is even a new car to review right? Or are the bloggers camped outside of dealerships waiting for unannounced new models to arrive? PR is advertising, albeit a more indirect form and PR is very expensive. My point; eliminating ads is bad for innovation and bad for companies who want to enter new markets.
TorKlingberg 9y ago
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but your comment is not relevant to the one you are replying to. You are just hijacking the top comment to rant (albeit a popular rant).
- megous 9y ago
  It hints at the blacklist vs whitelist approach to security. I'd rather whitelist good content, then try to detect and blacklist bad content, as that is a game of whac-a-mole.
Kiro 9y ago
> You'll search it out or your friends will tell you what to buy. That's a very simplified description of consumption. You make it sound like we only buy stuff we're in immediate need of and therefore actively search for.
edpichler 9y ago
I have a different opinion. Yesterday I was cycling and passed by a very good restaurant close to my house, the local was empty, and I was wondering why it's empty if they are very good, they have very good food and relative cheaper prices. I just realised they don't do ads! They are very bad in marketing despite the fact of being an exceptional restaurant, nobody remember them, they waits they customers remember them. I talked to myself many times "I need to go back there", but they passes and I always forget it. I did a parallel with my software business. You can have an exceptional software, but you can't stay frozen waiting your customers to find out you. Be very good is not enough on a world too much information. But, I think the traditional ad industry is not sustainable. Nobody wants to see intrusive ads, I believe content marketing and organically ads (I don't know if this term really exists), like in sports, are the best for the long run.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  There seems a good possibility that other less 'good' companies are stealing the clientele away with advertising. That, without the lies and coercion from other companies this place would be doing well, based on its relevant outputs rather than on its [lack of] glossy advertising.
  - edpichler 9y ago
    Yes, I am sure lower quality restaurants are stealing the clientele because they do ads and are remembered.
Super_Jambo 9y ago
The solution is to nationalize the advertising industry and force everything possible into a genuinely competitive market. Have a government run product listing. Think Amazon reviews, Yelp & Companies house. But with government ID to verify reviewers and harsh police enforcement against fake reviews or miss-leading product descriptions. Make it clear there will be prison time for systematic abuse. We're at a point where this is technologically trivial & the first country to do it properly will get a big advantage over any that doesn't follow suit quickly. Any person or company offering a product or service can create an account & list their product (with a price & links to where to buy it). Anyone who's bought the product / service can create a review. Throw in some sensible rules about major product changes requiring listings to be updated. But what about the advertising industry? Fund a massive nudge campaign to improve citizen behaviour. Tail the funding off over a few years, this is really just welfare for all the anti-workers to give them time to switch into doing something economically productive.
spb 9y ago
This is what the Cluetrain Manifesto was saying... in 1999. http://www.cluetrain.com/ http://www.cluetrain.com/
bumblebritches5 9y ago
2commie4me

cft 9y ago

An anecdote from 2010: my company had racks of Rackable Systems servers. Every month a server went dead- power supply, board or some such. Rackable Systems were unreliable. Then on Slashdot I saw a square ad for IBM System X servers (unfortunately they have been sold to Lenovo a couple of years ago). That somehow made me do research- although I was aware of IBM System X before. Between 2010 and 1013 we bought perhaps 20 IBM System X servers (rock solid and beautifully engineered). Cost per that ad impression was perhaps $75,000.

oiboabfljasbfo 9y ago
I won't deny this has occasionally happened to me, but look at your example: it's B2B when my claim is primarily for B2C. B2B ads tend to be more targeted, aimed at corporations, and purchases are for higher dollar amounts. The product being sold was also competing based on build quality, a material improvement. Businesses often make more rational decisions because they can assign someone to do research (like you did of your own volition) who will make comparisons and think about it. Imagine the same process happening for shampoo. I'm sure there are some people that want "the best" shampoo, but most of the products are going to be nearly interchangeable and the marketing will try focus on various kinds of manipulation to dig that moat. These manipulations aren't what most people think of, like a sex symbol hypnotizing you. Instead they work to increase brand familiarity, social proof, and provide a life style narrative you can tell yourself and show off to other people with. The capital hiding behind these campaigns funds newspapers, television, radio, and civic centers. It acts as a filter on the public discourse. If you're interested, look up Manufacturing Consent for more information. Here's a clip from a documentary based on the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU
- mozumder 9y ago
  Yah your argument against adverting is bullshit. Even consumers love ads. Did you know that they even pay money because they want ads? Those 900 pages of Vogue that they buy every September, do you think they're filled with articles? Because they're about 870 pages of fashion ads. People specifically buy them because of the advertising. And did you know Sunday papers are a thing, filled with coupons, that are basically ads? Sorry, but advertising serves a purpose that consumers actually pay money for.
  - crummy 9y ago
    I think people buy Vogue (and all other advertising-sodden media) despite the ads, not because of it.
    - zimpenfish 9y ago
      It would be an interesting experiment to put out a non-ad-subsidised version of Vogue and see how many people bought it. I would guess at "not that many".
      - LeoNatan25 9y ago
        If it’s “900” pages of pure content, rather than ads, hell, even I’d buy it.
        zimpenfish 9y ago
        It's 900 pages of pure content ... but costs $95.
        Kiro 9y ago
        You're probably in minority though. It's like a catalogue. The "pure content" is just fluff.
        utexaspunk 9y ago
        Even if that "content" is boilerplate drivel like "25 Ways to Drive Him Wild in Bed!"?
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Those ads were relevant though, and (I hope) not doing thousands of requests in the background; it was an IT-related ad, on an IT-related website, targeted at a person working in IT that was interested in new servers - what really is what the better ad providers are looking for. The rest is just idk, shotgunning and hoping something sticks.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  I dislike relevant ads the most because they are most likely to influence my behaviour.
  - strken 9y ago
    There must be a point between "advertisement for useless junk" and "useful advice + an affiliate link" where the two cross over, and as far as I can tell the only differences are relevance and directness. One example of advertising that I think is acceptable are the ads on the slatestarcodex.com sidebar, which are manually placed there by the author and targeted directly at the niche he writes in. If a computer could achieve the same precision when choosing what ads to run, and based its choices on the publication rather than the user, I think it would also be acceptable to me. Would you find such ads equally unpalatable?
    - builditand 9y ago
      Ads are bad. I'm not shopping not stop. I just want to read my article or whatever I am doing at that moment. When I want to buy something I go to a shop and being there I still don't want ads. I want accurate specs, relevant statistics, maybe pictures and honest reviews. Sometimes I could use a guide, when it's not my domain. I never stopped in the middle of something to say "I'd so watch an ad right now".
      - jalk 9y ago
        So perhaps you need to find paywalled news/review outlets without ads. Someone has to pay for the articles being written, servers, bandwidth etc
icebraining 9y ago
Maybe I'm being uncharitable, but what I read from that story is that advertising saved your company from its own incompetence, since it should have someone responsible for managing those servers and subsequently for doing research upon noticing the problems. For me, that example actually serves as an extra argument against ads.
- bryanrasmussen 9y ago
  I think you're being uncharitable, advertising led the company to have a higher degree of competence and understanding.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Fine, but it seems like a terrible tradeoff for the drawbacks mentioned by oasfboasbfos.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  Crikey, guy shares an anecdote of how an ad helped him and all you can do is be really nasty about it, it's completely unnecessary. I bought a piano course from Udemy because of advertising on FB (and then spent an additional £150 on a keyboard). I'm really enjoying it. Please tell me what a horrible human being I am.
  - tinus_hn 9y ago
    Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt like elderberries!
  - beefield 9y ago
    My gut feeling is that for every advertisement induced purchase you actually want and enjoy, there are several orders of magnitude more marketing/advertisement (directly or indirectly) induced purchases that are unnecessary or harmful.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
petra 9y ago
Electronic engineers face a similar problem, everyday:finding the optimal components to build stuff with. And at least in the case of standard components, they do that via parametric search tools(poring over many details), combined with vendors exposing a lot of details about products. And it works very well. I wish we had that in more fields. Would provide huge value, but it's a hard problem. But i suppose if with the right incentives(banning advertising ?), we could do it. The other source of info for EE's is education and PR, some of it probably pretty unbiased(at distributors sites), due to incentives. As for ads ? they exist, but they seem to play a relatively small role, and probably nothing major will change if they stopped existing.
- beagle3 9y ago
  Can you point at such a search engine for EEs?
  - petra 9y ago
    Digikey.com for example, for microcontrollers: https://www.digikey.com/products/en/integrated-circuits-ics/embedded-microcontrollers/685?k=&pkeyword=&FV=ffe002ad&mnonly=0&ColumnSort=0&page=1&quantity=0&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=25 https://www.digikey.com/products/en/integrated-circuits-ics/...
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  Parametric search tools are great for Digikey, but they're very hard to implement elsewhere. They're much less useful when you only have a small number of options. They're bad at quantifying qualitative properties like fit and finish or ease-of-use. And you can only compare closely related parts, because until you drill down to the level of, say, a parametric search for exclusively PMIC-Voltage Regulators-DC-DC-Switching controllers, it doesn't make sense to ask what the topology or output configuration is. Plus, it's extremely tedious to collate and filter all of the properties needed to make them work. Ebay and Amazon barely do it at all. Newegg and McMaster Carr do OK. Only EE components seem to be demonstrate the ideal parametric filter systems that negate the need for advertising. But I'm still a sucker for buying Linear Tech or TI components before, say, Maxim or Toshiba because even if the parametric search say that both options fit my requirements, the former seem to be better documented and more user-friendly than the latter. That's the kind of advertising you only get through years of writing expensive and high-quality technical papers and producing high-quality parts, and I suppose there will always be value in advertising that fact (or suggesting that fact, regardless of whether it's true for other advertisers) to less experienced engineers.
kuschku 9y ago
That’s why we need independent testing, and you should always check the independent tests before buying something. For example, whenever I need a new product, be it anything from a spoon to a car seat for a child, I’ll check Stiftung Warentest for full tests of that category. I’ll take the top 2 or 3, enter them on idealo or preispiraten or günstiger.de or hardwareschotte, and then I’ll take the cheapest of those. At no point in this purchasing process come ads into play, and I get the best results.

rabbitonrails 9y ago

Have you ever heard of multi-level marketing? Let's all buy what our friends tell us to buy.

Simon_says 9y ago
Come'on. When your friends don't have any vested interest, it works quite well.
- Jedd 9y ago
  Agreed. Friends or colleagues who I know aren't materially invested but still have strong opinions are extremely compelling. My usual line of questioning when I have the luxury is to ask what features of $thing they don't like - usually more insightful than pros.
  - Simon_says 9y ago
    That's interesting. I do something similar with online reviews on Trip Advisor and Amazon: I filter to look at only 1-3 star reviews (or sometimes only 2 and 3 star reviews if there are enough). In my experience, positive reviews are all the same, but negative reviews will give really good specifics. Then you judge just the relative proportion of reviews that are positive vs. negative.
    - Jedd 9y ago
      I'm extra wary of TripAdvisor, Amazon, etc -- as I don't know the people making the reviews, and I tend to assume a fair amount of astroturfing. I'm not convinced that they haven't worked out how to game the reviews such that even the lower-rated reviews aren't positives in disguise, in a similar way to those interview questions along the lines of 'What's your biggest weakness?' -- "I am a perfectionist // I work too hard // I care too much // I need to make every project a success", etc. Typically anyone that bothers to select a thing for purchase will examine all the features and attributes that they consider important, but often overlook the negated aspects that only come from familiarity with the product.

recursive 9y ago

Everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them. And everyone is wrong.

oiboabfljasbfo 9y ago
My claim is that it does work. Astoundingly well. My further claim is that it is not in the public interest.
- mozumder 9y ago
  No shit. The world isn't your personal charity for you. Advertisers don't owe you anything. But if you really want to get blown away, it actually does serve the public interest, because it increases commerce, and any sale is an increase in the GDP. Did you thank advertisers for growing the economy?
  - ionised 9y ago
    Do you think people owe advertisers a living?
    - thecrazyone 9y ago
      No you owe the content publishers a living if you're consuming their content else they go out of business. Ads is how content publishers make money. Advertisers in fact pay money for publishing their ads.
      - ionised 9y ago
        Show me the contract that states what you just did and I'll agree.
      - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
        Following your argument above, if the content publishers don't like it they should stop publishing content rather than enforcing your particular idea of an implicit contract. If not then your supposed liberalism is strongly biased against those who disprove of advertising.

dkersten 9y ago

> With very few exceptions, especially in the consumer space, you won't need advertising if you actually need something. You'll search it out or your friends will tell you what to buy. I typically use adverts to help me decide what to buy, but the adverts count as negative points towards the product, because I feel that if a product needs to rely on persuasion techniques, or to bombard my eyeballs all the time (especially if they're preroll-type adverts rather than passive banners) or if they're beside spammy adverts, then the product is likely crap anyway or the company are. Blame all the spam for this attitude, and all the obtrusive crap that is shown to me against my will each day (it seems that almost no matter where I look, online or physical world, I'm bombarded with someones shitty adverts)

grkvlt 9y ago
> adverts count as negative points towards the product > i use adverts to tell me what not to buy These sorts of attitudes seem odd. What products do thses people buy, since pretty much everything being sold in the west is advertised in some way? It seems like the sort of think someone would say as a sort of virtue signalling, but I can't believe its a policy anyone could stick to.
- dkersten 9y ago
  I didn't say anywhere in my post that if I see an advert, the product is instantly blacklisted -- only that it counts as a negative. So, if I had to choose between two otherwise equal products, I would choose the one with the least (or least annoying/intrusive) advertisement. I also perhaps should have said web adverts. I don't much pay attention to TV/radio/magazine/newspaper/billboard adverts, so I imagine I buy many products advertised there. I'm also not saying I don't buy any products that are advertised or that adverts don't work on me, but rather that: 1) If I'm looking for a product, I'll search and read reviews and such, but if I see advertisements, it counts as a negative point. I may still buy the item if it doesn't have enough other negative points. 2) If I see the same irritating advert multiple times, I'll make a mental note to never buy it. A number of youtube preroll adverts have had this effect.
  - 9y ago

briandear 9y ago

This is total nonsense. Without advertising, how does a new competitor compete with the entrenched incumbents? How does anyone find out about your product? News media? Because media converage is often the result of having a paid PR firm pitching your story to reporters. Reporters then become the gatekeeper for what becomes successful or not. As far as word of mouth, that is very difficult to rely upon as a repeatable business model. For example, if a smaller local bakery competing with a larger and more popular local bakery starts to make birthday cakes but they didn’t before — how does anyone in the community find out about it since people that buy birthday cakes typically go to the incumbent because they have no idea that the smaller bakery is starting to make great birthday cakes as well? It’s going to take a lot of time before that smaller bakery starts selling some cakes because nobody will know to go there for that purpose. Advertising is precisely the tool that allows new market entrants to compete with the status quo. As another example how does anyone learn that they can run Windows on their Mac without Apple having advertised that fact? Tech writers? How do they find out? PR? PR is advertising too you know, a different kind, but it is still a paid effort to create market awareness of some product or service. As far as “searching it out” — let’s take searching on Google or Bing as an example — the top organic results are the result of years of SEO; a new incumbent would be buried on page 20 for perhaps years which means that company will die waiting for word of mouth to start to happen. Meanwhile some big competitor with the budget for the extensive content marketing maintains their market leading position because there is literally no way for the new company to ever be discovered. Advertising is critical if we are to have competition. If we want nothing but Soviet style companies, then sure, eliminate advertising. Good luck ever launching a new product or trying to disrupt anything especially in spaces where virility isn’t possible. A new, more effective adult diaper for instance — who’s going to run out and tell all their friends about that? How much does word of mouth influence a decision as to what car to buy? There’s some influence certainly, but my family of five has different needs than my single neighbor. So word of mouth isn’t so effective when discussing the finer points of 7 seat vehicles. So I search blogs? Ok, so what providers a blogger to review vehicles? Page views? For what? Bloggers will charge for subscriptions to read their content? Good luck with that. Micro payments could be a solution, but a company would still need to let the blogger know there is even a new car to review right? Or are the bloggers camped outside of dealerships waiting for unannounced new models to arrive? PR is advertising, albeit a more indirect form and PR is very expensive. My point; eliminating ads is bad for innovation and bad for companies who want to enter new markets.

TorKlingberg 9y ago

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but your comment is not relevant to the one you are replying to. You are just hijacking the top comment to rant (albeit a popular rant).

megous 9y ago
It hints at the blacklist vs whitelist approach to security. I'd rather whitelist good content, then try to detect and blacklist bad content, as that is a game of whac-a-mole.

Kiro 9y ago

> You'll search it out or your friends will tell you what to buy. That's a very simplified description of consumption. You make it sound like we only buy stuff we're in immediate need of and therefore actively search for.

edpichler 9y ago

I have a different opinion. Yesterday I was cycling and passed by a very good restaurant close to my house, the local was empty, and I was wondering why it's empty if they are very good, they have very good food and relative cheaper prices. I just realised they don't do ads! They are very bad in marketing despite the fact of being an exceptional restaurant, nobody remember them, they waits they customers remember them. I talked to myself many times "I need to go back there", but they passes and I always forget it. I did a parallel with my software business. You can have an exceptional software, but you can't stay frozen waiting your customers to find out you. Be very good is not enough on a world too much information. But, I think the traditional ad industry is not sustainable. Nobody wants to see intrusive ads, I believe content marketing and organically ads (I don't know if this term really exists), like in sports, are the best for the long run.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
There seems a good possibility that other less 'good' companies are stealing the clientele away with advertising. That, without the lies and coercion from other companies this place would be doing well, based on its relevant outputs rather than on its [lack of] glossy advertising.
- edpichler 9y ago
  Yes, I am sure lower quality restaurants are stealing the clientele because they do ads and are remembered.

Super_Jambo 9y ago

The solution is to nationalize the advertising industry and force everything possible into a genuinely competitive market. Have a government run product listing. Think Amazon reviews, Yelp & Companies house. But with government ID to verify reviewers and harsh police enforcement against fake reviews or miss-leading product descriptions. Make it clear there will be prison time for systematic abuse. We're at a point where this is technologically trivial & the first country to do it properly will get a big advantage over any that doesn't follow suit quickly. Any person or company offering a product or service can create an account & list their product (with a price & links to where to buy it). Anyone who's bought the product / service can create a review. Throw in some sensible rules about major product changes requiring listings to be updated. But what about the advertising industry? Fund a massive nudge campaign to improve citizen behaviour. Tail the funding off over a few years, this is really just welfare for all the anti-workers to give them time to switch into doing something economically productive.

spb 9y ago

This is what the Cluetrain Manifesto was saying... in 1999. http://www.cluetrain.com/ http://www.cluetrain.com/

bumblebritches5 9y ago

2commie4me