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Using advertising to create demand is only a tiny part of the advertising market, and arguably the worst way to spend your ad budget. Most advertising is to ma

Using advertising to create demand is only a tiny part of the advertising market, and arguably the worst way to spend your ad budget. Most advertising is to maintain your market share in already established and very competitive markets. E.g., Coca-Cola plastering their logo everywhere to prevent Pepsi from doing the same. It's certainly not to convince those who don't drink Coke to start doing so.

darkarmani 7y ago
> Coca-Cola plastering their logo everywhere to prevent Pepsi from doing the same. Why would Pepsi do want to do it? Solely to prevent coca-cola from doing it? If it isn't to convince people to drink Pepsi for those who don't drink Pepsi, why would it matter if they did Pepsi instead of Coca-cola?
- asdff 7y ago
  Because, if you glance at a pepsi logo on a billboard in the morning, you are more likely to grab a pepsi than a coke out of the cooler at the store in the afternoon. Suddenly, your eyeballs become an arms race, and here we are today.
kerkeslager 7y ago
It seems like as a society if we agreed not to have advertising, we would save both companies (b|m)illions of dollars. This isn't an argument for advertising, it's an argument that advertising is an infectious disease: once one company in an industry starts advertising, the others have to advertise to compete. And that hurts consumers because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that comes out of the pockets of consumers and is not spent on improving the product.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation which would lead to things being worse for consumers. Really advertising is sort of an analog to reproductive signaling burdens like males deliberately showing fitness by making themselves obvious to predators.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation which would lead to things being worse for consumers. Right, but we don't have to accept that it has to be this way. If we're committing to the idea that competition is there to benefit consumers, we should cut out the parts of competition that clearly aren't beneficial to consumers. There would still be competition if people got information about products from independent reviewers, it would just be competition based on the qualities of the products, rather than the advertising.
    - otabdeveloper4 7y ago
      > ...if people got information about products from independent reviewers No such thing; in markets where traditional advertising never caught hold, the 'independent' reviewers are anything but. In a way that is much worse when bias and vested interest is clearly labeled.
      - kerkeslager 7y ago
        Consumer Reports, Labdoor, etc. work just fine. You can look at where the money for these companies comes from, and see who they're serving. Also, if you think that advertising bias and vested interest is clearly labeled, you may be seeing a lot of advertising that you don't realize is advertising.
bduerst 7y ago
Yep. Advertising exists because of information asymmetry in imperfect markets. Until humans know everything about every good or service in every market, there is going to be a demand for advertising.

darkarmani 7y ago

> Coca-Cola plastering their logo everywhere to prevent Pepsi from doing the same. Why would Pepsi do want to do it? Solely to prevent coca-cola from doing it? If it isn't to convince people to drink Pepsi for those who don't drink Pepsi, why would it matter if they did Pepsi instead of Coca-cola?

asdff 7y ago
Because, if you glance at a pepsi logo on a billboard in the morning, you are more likely to grab a pepsi than a coke out of the cooler at the store in the afternoon. Suddenly, your eyeballs become an arms race, and here we are today.

kerkeslager 7y ago

It seems like as a society if we agreed not to have advertising, we would save both companies (b|m)illions of dollars. This isn't an argument for advertising, it's an argument that advertising is an infectious disease: once one company in an industry starts advertising, the others have to advertise to compete. And that hurts consumers because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that comes out of the pockets of consumers and is not spent on improving the product.

Nasrudith 7y ago
It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation which would lead to things being worse for consumers. Really advertising is sort of an analog to reproductive signaling burdens like males deliberately showing fitness by making themselves obvious to predators.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation which would lead to things being worse for consumers. Right, but we don't have to accept that it has to be this way. If we're committing to the idea that competition is there to benefit consumers, we should cut out the parts of competition that clearly aren't beneficial to consumers. There would still be competition if people got information about products from independent reviewers, it would just be competition based on the qualities of the products, rather than the advertising.
  - otabdeveloper4 7y ago
    > ...if people got information about products from independent reviewers No such thing; in markets where traditional advertising never caught hold, the 'independent' reviewers are anything but. In a way that is much worse when bias and vested interest is clearly labeled.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      Consumer Reports, Labdoor, etc. work just fine. You can look at where the money for these companies comes from, and see who they're serving. Also, if you think that advertising bias and vested interest is clearly labeled, you may be seeing a lot of advertising that you don't realize is advertising.

bduerst 7y ago

Yep. Advertising exists because of information asymmetry in imperfect markets. Until humans know everything about every good or service in every market, there is going to be a demand for advertising.