3 ms·

>Same way people found out before advertising existed: word-of-mouth, trade fairs, product catalogs I didn't downvote your comment but here's a fyi about the p

by jasode 7y ago

>Same way people found out before advertising existed: word-of-mouth, trade fairs, product catalogs I didn't downvote your comment but here's a fyi about the pervasiveness of advertising if you didn't already know... Trade fairs are actually a form of "advertising". For example, a trade show selling a 10ft-by-10ft booth is essentially selling a 100 sqft "ad slot". The "ad inventory" for sale is the whole trade show floor. When companies spend money for a trade show booth, they categorize it in their financial accounting as "marketing budget".[0] Product catalogs are often partially funded by sponsors that are featured in the catalog. As for "word of mouth", the 1st person that started the chain of recommendations was often exposed to advertising. [0] https://www.thetradeshownetwork.com/trade-show-blog/the-8-marketing-budget-templates-you-need-to-manage-your-marketing-spend https://www.thetradeshownetwork.com/trade-show-blog/the-8-ma...

mschuster91 7y ago
Of course that are forms of advertising, but these were the tools of the trade for thousands of years. Modern advertising h(a)unting us wherever and whenever we go is a fairly modern innovation, but society and regulations have not caught up with it by far. Widespread influencer marketing for anyone but ultra-big brands able to buy product placements in movies would have been beyond unimaginable until the advent of smartphones where every tiny hotel has the opportunity to have global reach for, essentially, paying a flight and the cost of the stay for the influencer. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Targeted advertising is also something that only got possible and mass-affordable in the last two decades, and the mechanisms that make it work are deeply cutting into everyone's privacy. It isn't actually even possible any more to live any kind of modern life without your data ending up at the big tech companies' silos to be mined for ads - have a brick-style cellphone and give the number to a friend? Facebook and Whatsapp, as well as Google, now know your name and phone number. Order something online? The cloud provider hosting the (mail) infrastructure of the shop has your data and knows what you've ordered. These days one can't even go "offline shopping" anymore as the tape-backed gross quality anti-theft cameras got replaced by HD or 4K capable sensors with backend infrastructure that enables real time face identification and motion tracking, probably even eye tracking now, to watch your every blink while strolling through the aisles. Thanks to modern open source libraries I can probably throw together a MVP store tracking system in a day or two. This kind of tracking is a commodity now, in a total free-for-all world, and aside from GDPR society hasn't had any kind of debate on that. And that's just the stuff that you literally cannot evade - the things people do willingly in exchange for reward programs, cashbacks and the likes are even more encompassing.

by jasode 7y ago

mschuster91 7y ago

Of course that are forms of advertising, but these were the tools of the trade for thousands of years. Modern advertising h(a)unting us wherever and whenever we go is a fairly modern innovation, but society and regulations have not caught up with it by far. Widespread influencer marketing for anyone but ultra-big brands able to buy product placements in movies would have been beyond unimaginable until the advent of smartphones where every tiny hotel has the opportunity to have global reach for, essentially, paying a flight and the cost of the stay for the influencer. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Targeted advertising is also something that only got possible and mass-affordable in the last two decades, and the mechanisms that make it work are deeply cutting into everyone's privacy. It isn't actually even possible any more to live any kind of modern life without your data ending up at the big tech companies' silos to be mined for ads - have a brick-style cellphone and give the number to a friend? Facebook and Whatsapp, as well as Google, now know your name and phone number. Order something online? The cloud provider hosting the (mail) infrastructure of the shop has your data and knows what you've ordered. These days one can't even go "offline shopping" anymore as the tape-backed gross quality anti-theft cameras got replaced by HD or 4K capable sensors with backend infrastructure that enables real time face identification and motion tracking, probably even eye tracking now, to watch your every blink while strolling through the aisles. Thanks to modern open source libraries I can probably throw together a MVP store tracking system in a day or two. This kind of tracking is a commodity now, in a total free-for-all world, and aside from GDPR society hasn't had any kind of debate on that. And that's just the stuff that you literally cannot evade - the things people do willingly in exchange for reward programs, cashbacks and the likes are even more encompassing.