5 ms·

Cable television being another completely obvious one, you literally pay to be advertised to, and for the ability to fast forward through ads.

expertentipp 8y ago
Public media and TV in Europe, including the one with the largest budget on the entire planet - German, play and display ads even though are sponsored from compulsory per-household fees.
- isostatic 8y ago
  Wow, higher than bbc. What's more annoying is adverts are a mere 7% of income, yet make it unwatchable. So lucky in the UK.
- sixdimensional 8y ago
  Is this actually a market inefficiency? Maybe this is an opportunity to discover how humanity can still make information known about products and services without having to make our entire cultures about consumption. I mean, advertising is about information sharing in a way. Can it be more efficient without clobbering art and media?
  - xg15 8y ago
    Ads are less about "information sharing" and more about manipulation though. If I think about "information sharing", I'd imagine that the information is the thing of value to be shared and the goal is to enable the recipient to perform their own decisions with and increased base of background information. However, ads work the other way around: You start with certainly outcomes that you would potential customers arrive at in their decisions and then think which information you can deliver to them to reach that outcome.
    - sixdimensional 8y ago
      Good points. So what does an ad that doesn't have a behavioral component look like, and can they be presented in a different way? And could we still make that effective? Or is it a class of ad that is ethical vs not? I know I'm way off in the weeds here, just brainstorming.
      - xg15 8y ago
        Well, I don't think it would be an ad anymore, because if the goal is to inform a consumer, the goal can't be to promote a particular product/brand/company. So maybe something like independently ran price comparison sites would work?
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        "Company X sells a product Y which is meant to solve the problem Z, and does so through features A, B and C." That's it. The ad just informed consumers about existence of a particular company and product, made it clear what the product is for, and listed its important qualities (especially differentiating from other similar products). That's what you do when you actually care to inform, and not manipulate, customers. Since pretty much no ads are like this, I call bullshit when someone says advertising is important because it informs people.
- kurtisc 8y ago
  The BBC often congratulates itself on not showing ads. Instead, every radio show is 50% 'trailers' for other BBC things which you'll hear half a dozen times by the end of a workday.
  - dorchadas 8y ago
    That seems to be exactly how SiriusXM is set up in the States. I hear about their other shoes all the time.
  - IcePic 8y ago
    Swedish public service TV is the same. Guess all the 1-hour shows are down to 27 minutes of content or so, leaving huge gaps needing to be filled with some .. air.

expertentipp 8y ago

Public media and TV in Europe, including the one with the largest budget on the entire planet - German, play and display ads even though are sponsored from compulsory per-household fees.

isostatic 8y ago
Wow, higher than bbc. What's more annoying is adverts are a mere 7% of income, yet make it unwatchable. So lucky in the UK.
sixdimensional 8y ago
Is this actually a market inefficiency? Maybe this is an opportunity to discover how humanity can still make information known about products and services without having to make our entire cultures about consumption. I mean, advertising is about information sharing in a way. Can it be more efficient without clobbering art and media?
- xg15 8y ago
  Ads are less about "information sharing" and more about manipulation though. If I think about "information sharing", I'd imagine that the information is the thing of value to be shared and the goal is to enable the recipient to perform their own decisions with and increased base of background information. However, ads work the other way around: You start with certainly outcomes that you would potential customers arrive at in their decisions and then think which information you can deliver to them to reach that outcome.
  - sixdimensional 8y ago
    Good points. So what does an ad that doesn't have a behavioral component look like, and can they be presented in a different way? And could we still make that effective? Or is it a class of ad that is ethical vs not? I know I'm way off in the weeds here, just brainstorming.
    - xg15 8y ago
      Well, I don't think it would be an ad anymore, because if the goal is to inform a consumer, the goal can't be to promote a particular product/brand/company. So maybe something like independently ran price comparison sites would work?
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      "Company X sells a product Y which is meant to solve the problem Z, and does so through features A, B and C." That's it. The ad just informed consumers about existence of a particular company and product, made it clear what the product is for, and listed its important qualities (especially differentiating from other similar products). That's what you do when you actually care to inform, and not manipulate, customers. Since pretty much no ads are like this, I call bullshit when someone says advertising is important because it informs people.
kurtisc 8y ago
The BBC often congratulates itself on not showing ads. Instead, every radio show is 50% 'trailers' for other BBC things which you'll hear half a dozen times by the end of a workday.
- dorchadas 8y ago
  That seems to be exactly how SiriusXM is set up in the States. I hear about their other shoes all the time.
- IcePic 8y ago
  Swedish public service TV is the same. Guess all the 1-hour shows are down to 27 minutes of content or so, leaving huge gaps needing to be filled with some .. air.