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I'm gonna take the contrarian viewpoint here. Full disclosure: I'm in advertising. The researcher states that increasing "aspiration" (their term) leads to dis

I'm gonna take the contrarian viewpoint here. Full disclosure: I'm in advertising. The researcher states that increasing "aspiration" (their term) leads to dissatisfaction and more unhappiness. Sure! But aspiration is also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded fancy schools like Harvard, try to be good parents, etc. I don't disagree that ambition and aspiration can make a person unhappy. But it's also what drives literally all human progress. So unless you believe primitive man was living their best life and that everything that has happened since then is a regression (and certainly some people hold that view), I find it hard to swallow that aspirations are a bad thing. Yes, there's a negative to them. But virtually every good thing people have ever done was because of their aspirations. Therefore I don't agree with the notion that advertising is inherently bad because it raises people's expectations for themselves. I consider that a good thing even if it comes at the cost of a decrease in personal happiness. HOWEVER (I can feel your hatred), there's a difference between motivating people to aspire to better things vs simply making them feel shitty about themselves so they'll buy your crap. ex: When a fashion brand shows impossibly attractive people wearing their clothes, they're not showing us how to live better lives. They're simply making us feel shitty for not being models, and then hoping we'll make the conclusion that we'd look better if we bought those clothes. That doesn't make anyone's life better. That's just a shit sandwich all around. ex: When a tech company shows us a bunch of people being really productive using their products, it can inspire us to want to be more productive. If their product truly can make us more productive (like the invention of the PC... no reasonable person would argue that PCs didn't make us more productive, right?), then that's great. ex: Pharmaceutical drugs have been a fantastic boon for humanity. We rely on them constantly to extend our lives and improve our quality of life. Yet some (many?) drugs are nowhere near as beneficial as they are advertised (I'm looking at you, Fentanyl). So I think the question is simply: does the product actually improve our lives in the way the advertising suggests? Or is it just a bait-and-switch? Advertising isn't inherently bad, any more than aspirations are inherently bad. It boils down to what's being advertised and how honest the ads are about it.

JohnFen 7y ago
> But aspiration is also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded fancy schools like Harvard, try to be good parents, etc. Excluding fancy schools (which I believe aren't exactly a good thing), none of those things were inspired by "aspiration" in the sense being used here. They were inspired by genuine need. > I consider that a good thing even if it comes at the cost of a decrease in personal happiness. We could not possibly disagree more. I think it is straight-up immoral for anyone to intentionally make another's life worse in order to sell them stuff. > Advertising isn't inherently bad, any more than aspirations are inherently bad. It boils down to what's being advertised and how honest the ads are about it. We agree here. Advertising, in the form that advertisers tend cite to people who are critical of advertising (informing people about products) is not inherently bad. However, the vast majority of advertising isn't of that form at all. It's of the form of manipulating people instead. That's the sort of advertising that is terrible.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  > We could not possible disagree more. I think it is straight-up immoral for anyone to intentionally make another's life worse in order to sell them stuff. I'm not sure we disagree, actually. I think you may be misunderstanding my meaning. When I tell you about a product, a number of things are happening: 1. If I'm successful in getting you to want the product, I've created (or emphasized an existing) dissatisfaction. That's not good. But: 2. I've given you the knowledge of a solution to your problem. Depending on the problem at hand, the solution might improve your health, extend your life, help you earn more money, be a better parent, donate to a charity, etc. So I think if you want to stand in judgment of the morality of advertising, it has to be done on a case by case basis, and you have to weigh all the pros and cons. I'll give you an example of a type of advertising that will clearly decrease your happiness but is still a net positive. (Impossible, right?) Take a look at any ad for any charity. Those ads make your life worse by telling you how miserable things are for some group of people or animals or some other cause. And even if you "buy" what the ads are selling (i.e. you give them money), you're still going to feel like garbage about their cause. And yet, I'm willing to bet you wouldn't consider those ads to be evil, would you? It's an extreme example, but it illustrates my point: you have to consider more than just happiness. Here's a more extreme example: If all I cared about was making people happy, I'd sell heroin. Heroin feels awesome. Heroin makes people happy. It also destroys their lives in the process. Some addicts manage to be happy all the way to their death bed. So happiness is not the end-all-be-all measurement of what is good and what is bad. It's definitely A measurement. I'm not discounting it. I'm just saying there are other things to consider as well, and I don't personally consider it the #1 most important measurement. (It's probably in my top 5.)
throwanem 7y ago
Thank God for the advertisements that motivated Jonas Salk to invent the polio vaccine, huh?
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  Ah yes, snark. This is helpful. In case you missed it: I didn't say advertising got people to invent jack shit. I said "aspirations" did. The research paper claimed aspirations are what make people unhappy, and then said advertising increases aspirations, so therefore advertising makes people unhappy. I'm defending aspirations. The research paper is the one saying advertising leads to aspirations, which I consider a complement, thank you very much.
ganzuul 7y ago
Name one advertising agency which has honesty as one of its core precepts.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  Petryna Advertising, my agency. Thanks for coming out.
  - slumdev 7y ago
    How many corporate Centers of Excellence produce excellent work?
    - nickelcitymario 7y ago
      Pardon? I don't know what that means.
  - endothrowho333 7y ago
    Prove it.
    - nickelcitymario 7y ago
      Interesting challenge. What would constitute proof? I'm not being facetious and I honestly don't know if I could prove it. It's simply a value we hold dear and we're up front about it with our clients and our team. We refuse to be dishonest, because it's bad for business. For context: we're a small agency in a small city. If we either lied to our clients or produced dishonest advertising, we believe we'd be out of business in short order. I'll give you an example. Many businesses suspect their agencies pad the hours on their billings. So instead we mostly do project-based quotes: as long as the scope of the project doesn't change, we don't change our quote, even when we lose money on it (and it happens). I can't prove that, though, so you'll just have to decide if I'm being honest about it I guess.
      - endothrowho333 7y ago
s5fs 7y ago
Human aspiration is built-in, we don't need help via advertising to desire more from life. Everyone seems to have adopted fire and the wheel without a marketing campaign, after all. Advertising may not be inherently bad, but given the scope and scale of modern advertising, one has to admit that we've gone too far. Google tells me we see about 5,000 ads per day, do you consider this a good or a bad thing? As a representative of your industry I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  > do you consider this a good or a bad thing? As a representative of your industry I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I wouldn't presume to speak for my industry, but here are my thoughts and I appreciate being asked the question (as opposed to simply being attacked). 1. 5000 ads seems like too much, but I'm really not sure how we could arrive at what would be considered the right amount. 100? 5? 0? And even if we could, how would that get regulated, exactly? If we restricted it, who would decide who gets to advertise and who doesn't? Some may balk at this, but I feel that would lead to a form of censorship that none of us would appreciate. So the right number seems to be either zero or unlimited. 2. That said, some places have put full on bans on certain types of advertising. I'm ok with that. People seem to like it. 3. Most advertising (there are very few exceptions) fund various types of media. With the exception of state-funded media, advertising is the reason we have TV, radio, newspapers, social media, online news, YouTube, etc. Generally speaking, no one is willing to pay the full cost of the media we all consume. It's paid for by advertising. (You're welcome.) (If anyone brings up Netflix, tell me when exactly they intend to turn a profit and become a sustainable business?) So is it good or bad? I maintain that, like most things in life, this should be judged on a case by case basis. Blanket judgments don't work. > Human aspiration is built-in, we don't need help via advertising to desire more from life. Yes and no. I get it if you don't think advertising contributes a net positive to human aspirations. But do you condemn teachers, preachers, and parents for trying to get people to aspire to greater things? Maybe the assumption is that advertising only promotes things that don't need promoting. I disagree, but I won't argue. But I have a hard time believing that your position is that no one should ever try to persuade anyone of anything because we're born with all the motivation we'll ever need. If that were the case, why are we even having this conversation?
Dirlewanger 7y ago
A lot of surreal coping and rationalization going on here. Comparing aspiration in "advertising" to inventing the wheel and harnessing fire??? Jesus Christ, man. What bizzaro world do you have to be in this say something like this? Oh, right: the advertising industry.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  What bizarro world do you have to live in to think advertising is what's wrong with the world? Oh right: the tech industry. The one that thinks everything it does is going to change the world for the better.
  - nickelcitymario 7y ago
    I apologize fo the comment about the tech industry. I was going to edit it to simply take it out, but that wouldn't be terribly honest of me. So it stays. But I can't in good conscious say "hey, please don't be a jerk to me for being in advertising" and then turn around and mock the entire tech industry. That's BS on my part.
    - bryan_w 7y ago
      You're a good man, Charlie Brown. I understand it's frustrating dealing with these types of people. Just know that HN is a bubble and doesn't usually represent the majority of people, just a ... vocal subset of people
      - nickelcitymario 7y ago
        Hahaha, thanks :-)
beart 7y ago
I feel slightly insulted by your point of view. You seem to be saying that advertising is like medicine, it might taste bad but it will end up being good for me in the end. Short of moving to a cabin in the woods, there is no way to actually escape advertising if I choose. And even limiting advertising takes a lot of effort. I'm not just talking about ads on web pages - it's in movies, TV, on the sides of buildings, on the back of every car on the road, on every radio station, in every store, at every gas station, every few hundred yards on every interstate, every bus stop, every telephone pole, in every magazine and news paper. I don't want to take this medicine, please stop shoving it down my throat. I'm perfectly happy without all of these healthy "aspirations" to guide me in my life.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  > You seem to be saying that advertising is like medicine, it might taste bad but it will end up being good for me in the end. Goodness me, no that's not what I'm saying and I apologize if that's how it came out. The research paper said advertising leads to aspirations, and this is inherently bad because aspirations lead to unhappiness. I'm saying aspirations are a good thing, regardless of their source. I didn't know this was a controversial position. But I'm also agreeing that when advertising creates or emphasizes a non-existent problem to sell you something that doesn't benefit you in the long run, then that's a shitty thing to do. There are many laws in most countries that curb the worse examples of this, and we could almost certainly benefit from more of them (or stronger enforcement... I dunno, not a lawyer). As for the quantity of advertising, I said this in another response as well: How do you intend to limit it? While any ban is obviously a negative to my business, on an ethical standpoint I'm fine with such a ban as long as it's complete. What I'm not ok with is saying "there can only be X number of ads" because THAT's when things get unfair. That's when the advertisers with the biggest pockets will get the advantage, because they'll be the only ones who can afford to buy such a limited supply of ads.
  - beart 7y ago
    > As for the quantity of advertising, I said this in another response as well: How do you intend to limit it? While any ban is obviously a negative to my business, on an ethical standpoint I'm fine with such a ban as long as it's complete. What I'm not ok with is saying "there can only be X number of ads" because THAT's when things get unfair. That's when the advertisers with the biggest pockets will get the advantage, because they'll be the only ones who can afford to buy such a limited supply of ads. Just because it's a hard problem to solve doesn't mean it's not a problem worth solving or that there is no solution. That said, I don't think just lowering the number of ads is really getting at what I'm saying. Lowering the number of advertisements doesn't provide me with any more choice, it just makes the current situation less annoying (to whatever degree). If I want a particular thing, I can go out and search for it. I don't need to be told about that thing constantly when I have no initial desire for it. Here is a concrete example. I enjoy films, but I don't watch network or cable television at home, so I generally don't have any idea what new movies are out there. However, when I decide that I feel like watching a movie, I go online and seek out the advertisements (trailers) for those movies. I do this by my own choice. Another example is that I will sometimes check out the recommended videos on YouTube if I'm bored, and these are essentially advertisements for various content creators. Again, I make the specific choice to do this. When I'm driving down the highway, my goal is to get somewhere, not find a local personal injury attorney, and yet I am forced to see sign after sign for these with absolutely no choice in the matter.
iN7h33nD 7y ago
I think that the aspirations that almost all advertisements give to people are actively harmful in every possible way. - It is the main revenue source of most mentally harmful products like social media. A replacement created for the good of the world paid for by taxes with open data would be much preferred. - Has masked how the world really functions via out-right lies and deception. Coke makes you happy, Happy Cows come from California, Diamonds must be given to show love - Allows people with the most money to have the most likely chance of getting elected. - Uses your personal information so that they are more likely to sell you things. - Drug should not be advertised. Why the would a doctor want their patient to ask them for a specific drug??? - Convinced people that single use garbage should have a place in our society. I am sure there are many more negatives, but for now I think this will suffice. Perhaps with enough regulation many of these things could be changed, but I don't see it happening. Advertising can be used for good, see anti-smoking ads, but in its current state it is all bad. I can't think of an aspiration an ad has given me which gave me a problem to fix instead of a reason to consume.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  Since you cherry picked the worst examples, let me cherry pick some of the best: - Ads for charities - Political ads (which are only good or bad if you agree or disagree with their positions) - Ads for schools - Movie trailers (a form of entertainment in it of themselves) Also: I suspect (but don't have the means to prove) a positive correlation between advertising spending and national GDP. Look, if your point is that capitalism is evil, I'm not gonna argue it. But in a free market, advertising creates jobs. It builds companies. It builds economies. When that advertising-free socialist utopia shows up that somehow isn't an evil dictatorship, let me know! Sounds awesome.
  - iN7h33nD 7y ago
    I did not cherry pick the worst examples, just the most common. Only one of your examples could possibly lead to a good aspiration in people, charities. Even that seems like a stretch though as many advertisements for charities are scams or to charities that only use a low percentage of the donation for the charities cause. It could push people to look up a list charities and donate, which is why it could be positive. We don't need ads for schools or politicians a person should make their own choice based on impartial data and public debates. Movie trailers in and of themselves are not bad, but as advertisements they only drive people to consume. I can't say that they give positive aspirations. Why do we need to be socialist or a utopia to ban most advertising?
newnewpdro 7y ago
Necessity, not aspiration, is the mother of invention. Please change careers.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  I would, but the position of "snarky internet commentator" has been filled. If only I had pithy quotes that I could paste to make my arguments for me, rather than, I dunno, using original thought.
  - cwivbly 7y ago
    Sophistry's worse than snark.
    - nickelcitymario 7y ago
      Are you saying I must be a liar because I’m in advertising? Or that the arguments I’m making here today are meant to deceive? Or just a random opinion about sophistry?
darkarmani 7y ago
> Therefore I don't agree with the notion that advertising is inherently bad because it raises people's expectations for themselves. It's more nuanced than that. They are using advertising as shorthand for commercial advertising. The aspirations they are encouraging are for products. This want is what is causing the unhappiness. They could increase aspiration for positive things, but that is not what advertisers are doing.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  > They could increase aspiration for positive things, but that is not what advertisers are doing. I maintain that it depends on what is being advertised. It can be used for good, evil, and everything in between. What percentage of advertising falls into which category is largely subjective. If the product is good for society, then the ads for it are a good for society too. If the product harms society, the ads for it magnify that harm. Maybe that's what I should have said right from the start: advertising is a magnifier of whatever is already there. If the product sucks, advertising will help it fail faster. If it helps people, advertising will allow it to help even more people.
kerkeslager 7y ago
> Advertising isn't inherently bad, any more than aspirations are inherently bad. It boils down to what's being advertised and how honest the ads are about it. They aren't honest about it. An honest appraisal of a product would include all relevant information, including if a competitor's product is better or cheaper, or if the product has problems that might be worse than the solution. That's what Consumer Reports-type sites do, what friends/family do, what doctors/mechanics do, what minimalists do. It's not what advertisers do. The very most honest advertising is lying by omission, and most advertising is much worse than that. If you were trying to help consumers find the best products, you'd work for an independent review site that accepts money from consumers rather than producers so that you're actually accountable to the people you help. Advertising isn't there to help consumers--it fundamentally is the wrong way to help consumers.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  > Advertising isn't there to help consumers--it fundamentally is the wrong way to help consumers. Advertising helps businesses. Businesses serve consumers. Businesses wouldn't spend a dime on advertising if it didn't need to in order to stay in business. Ergo, advertising serves consumers, albeit indirectly. > They aren't honest about it. Has any advertiser ever claimed to give you the full picture? Both sides of the argument? No, of course not. It's a sales pitch. You know it's a sales pitch. They know you know it's a sales pitch. They know that you know that they're only presenting the positive sales points. You know that they know that you know. Where's the dishonesty, exactly? It's like going on a date and saying "You know, sometimes I don't shave. Or brush my teeth. Or wear a nice outfit. I only did those to make a good impression. There's a really good chance there's someone better for you out there." Of COURSE advertisers are putting their best foot forward. Does your resume list every time you were ever late for work? When you signed up for a credit card, did you tell the bank that you were late on rent a few months ago? When you applied for post-secondary, did you tell them about that math tutor you needed to get through trig? How freakishly up-front do you need the world to be to live up to your standards?
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > Advertising helps businesses. Businesses serve consumers. No, businesses serve themselves. Corporations are not your friends. Sometimes their interests align with consumers' but not always. > Has any advertiser ever claimed to give you the full picture? Both sides of the argument? No, of course not. It's a sales pitch. You know it's a sales pitch. They know you know it's a sales pitch. They know that you know that they're only presenting the positive sales points. You know that they know that you know. > Where's the dishonesty, exactly? Your claim is basically that if they don't claim to tell the truth, and everybody knows they're lying, it's no longer lying. > How freakishly up-front do you need the world to be to live up to your standards? How about we start with something simple like not pretending that advertisers jamming their ads down my throat is an altruistic act?
titzer 7y ago
> But virtually every good thing people have ever done was because of their aspirations. I'll think of this comment every time I see an ad that makes me "aspire" to better myself and others by giving my money to someone else.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  I suppose you work for free?
asdfqwer234 7y ago
"...[I]s also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded fancy schools like Harvard" there's a huge false equivalency here; I'll let you figure out which one it is. How much consumer advertising appeals to "good" aspiration and fills a need which is fairly priced (ie doesn't have brand/marketing/silly subliminal cultural messaging priced in).
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  When I talked about inventions, I was talking about aspirations. I.e. whenever we do anything it's because we aspire to something better. Someone was cold, stumbled upon fire and saw that it kept them warm, and aspired to harness that so they could be warm all the time. I don't see how that's controversial. As for how much advertising appeals to good aspirations, I have no idea. Probably not a lot of it. I wasn't defending all of advertising; I was saying don't throw the entire industry under the bus. I, for one, try to do only honest work for companies that provide goods and services that I believe in. Not everyone in this industry gets that freedom, but most of us do our best. I get it, though. It's easy to hate on advertisers, just as it's easy to hate on salespeople and lawyers and politicians and stock brokers. I happen to consider all these professions necessary to our economy, though. I don't think it's a coincidence that the most prosperous societies have the most of these professions, including advertisers.

JohnFen 7y ago

> But aspiration is also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded fancy schools like Harvard, try to be good parents, etc. Excluding fancy schools (which I believe aren't exactly a good thing), none of those things were inspired by "aspiration" in the sense being used here. They were inspired by genuine need. > I consider that a good thing even if it comes at the cost of a decrease in personal happiness. We could not possibly disagree more. I think it is straight-up immoral for anyone to intentionally make another's life worse in order to sell them stuff. > Advertising isn't inherently bad, any more than aspirations are inherently bad. It boils down to what's being advertised and how honest the ads are about it. We agree here. Advertising, in the form that advertisers tend cite to people who are critical of advertising (informing people about products) is not inherently bad. However, the vast majority of advertising isn't of that form at all. It's of the form of manipulating people instead. That's the sort of advertising that is terrible.

nickelcitymario 7y ago
> We could not possible disagree more. I think it is straight-up immoral for anyone to intentionally make another's life worse in order to sell them stuff. I'm not sure we disagree, actually. I think you may be misunderstanding my meaning. When I tell you about a product, a number of things are happening: 1. If I'm successful in getting you to want the product, I've created (or emphasized an existing) dissatisfaction. That's not good. But: 2. I've given you the knowledge of a solution to your problem. Depending on the problem at hand, the solution might improve your health, extend your life, help you earn more money, be a better parent, donate to a charity, etc. So I think if you want to stand in judgment of the morality of advertising, it has to be done on a case by case basis, and you have to weigh all the pros and cons. I'll give you an example of a type of advertising that will clearly decrease your happiness but is still a net positive. (Impossible, right?) Take a look at any ad for any charity. Those ads make your life worse by telling you how miserable things are for some group of people or animals or some other cause. And even if you "buy" what the ads are selling (i.e. you give them money), you're still going to feel like garbage about their cause. And yet, I'm willing to bet you wouldn't consider those ads to be evil, would you? It's an extreme example, but it illustrates my point: you have to consider more than just happiness. Here's a more extreme example: If all I cared about was making people happy, I'd sell heroin. Heroin feels awesome. Heroin makes people happy. It also destroys their lives in the process. Some addicts manage to be happy all the way to their death bed. So happiness is not the end-all-be-all measurement of what is good and what is bad. It's definitely A measurement. I'm not discounting it. I'm just saying there are other things to consider as well, and I don't personally consider it the #1 most important measurement. (It's probably in my top 5.)

throwanem 7y ago

Thank God for the advertisements that motivated Jonas Salk to invent the polio vaccine, huh?

nickelcitymario 7y ago
Ah yes, snark. This is helpful. In case you missed it: I didn't say advertising got people to invent jack shit. I said "aspirations" did. The research paper claimed aspirations are what make people unhappy, and then said advertising increases aspirations, so therefore advertising makes people unhappy. I'm defending aspirations. The research paper is the one saying advertising leads to aspirations, which I consider a complement, thank you very much.

ganzuul 7y ago

Name one advertising agency which has honesty as one of its core precepts.

nickelcitymario 7y ago
Petryna Advertising, my agency. Thanks for coming out.
- slumdev 7y ago
  How many corporate Centers of Excellence produce excellent work?
  - nickelcitymario 7y ago
    Pardon? I don't know what that means.
- endothrowho333 7y ago
  Prove it.
  - nickelcitymario 7y ago
    Interesting challenge. What would constitute proof? I'm not being facetious and I honestly don't know if I could prove it. It's simply a value we hold dear and we're up front about it with our clients and our team. We refuse to be dishonest, because it's bad for business. For context: we're a small agency in a small city. If we either lied to our clients or produced dishonest advertising, we believe we'd be out of business in short order. I'll give you an example. Many businesses suspect their agencies pad the hours on their billings. So instead we mostly do project-based quotes: as long as the scope of the project doesn't change, we don't change our quote, even when we lose money on it (and it happens). I can't prove that, though, so you'll just have to decide if I'm being honest about it I guess.
    - endothrowho333 7y ago

s5fs 7y ago

Human aspiration is built-in, we don't need help via advertising to desire more from life. Everyone seems to have adopted fire and the wheel without a marketing campaign, after all. Advertising may not be inherently bad, but given the scope and scale of modern advertising, one has to admit that we've gone too far. Google tells me we see about 5,000 ads per day, do you consider this a good or a bad thing? As a representative of your industry I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

nickelcitymario 7y ago
> do you consider this a good or a bad thing? As a representative of your industry I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I wouldn't presume to speak for my industry, but here are my thoughts and I appreciate being asked the question (as opposed to simply being attacked). 1. 5000 ads seems like too much, but I'm really not sure how we could arrive at what would be considered the right amount. 100? 5? 0? And even if we could, how would that get regulated, exactly? If we restricted it, who would decide who gets to advertise and who doesn't? Some may balk at this, but I feel that would lead to a form of censorship that none of us would appreciate. So the right number seems to be either zero or unlimited. 2. That said, some places have put full on bans on certain types of advertising. I'm ok with that. People seem to like it. 3. Most advertising (there are very few exceptions) fund various types of media. With the exception of state-funded media, advertising is the reason we have TV, radio, newspapers, social media, online news, YouTube, etc. Generally speaking, no one is willing to pay the full cost of the media we all consume. It's paid for by advertising. (You're welcome.) (If anyone brings up Netflix, tell me when exactly they intend to turn a profit and become a sustainable business?) So is it good or bad? I maintain that, like most things in life, this should be judged on a case by case basis. Blanket judgments don't work. > Human aspiration is built-in, we don't need help via advertising to desire more from life. Yes and no. I get it if you don't think advertising contributes a net positive to human aspirations. But do you condemn teachers, preachers, and parents for trying to get people to aspire to greater things? Maybe the assumption is that advertising only promotes things that don't need promoting. I disagree, but I won't argue. But I have a hard time believing that your position is that no one should ever try to persuade anyone of anything because we're born with all the motivation we'll ever need. If that were the case, why are we even having this conversation?

Dirlewanger 7y ago

A lot of surreal coping and rationalization going on here. Comparing aspiration in "advertising" to inventing the wheel and harnessing fire??? Jesus Christ, man. What bizzaro world do you have to be in this say something like this? Oh, right: the advertising industry.

nickelcitymario 7y ago
What bizarro world do you have to live in to think advertising is what's wrong with the world? Oh right: the tech industry. The one that thinks everything it does is going to change the world for the better.
- nickelcitymario 7y ago
  I apologize fo the comment about the tech industry. I was going to edit it to simply take it out, but that wouldn't be terribly honest of me. So it stays. But I can't in good conscious say "hey, please don't be a jerk to me for being in advertising" and then turn around and mock the entire tech industry. That's BS on my part.
  - bryan_w 7y ago
    You're a good man, Charlie Brown. I understand it's frustrating dealing with these types of people. Just know that HN is a bubble and doesn't usually represent the majority of people, just a ... vocal subset of people
    - nickelcitymario 7y ago
      Hahaha, thanks :-)

beart 7y ago

I feel slightly insulted by your point of view. You seem to be saying that advertising is like medicine, it might taste bad but it will end up being good for me in the end. Short of moving to a cabin in the woods, there is no way to actually escape advertising if I choose. And even limiting advertising takes a lot of effort. I'm not just talking about ads on web pages - it's in movies, TV, on the sides of buildings, on the back of every car on the road, on every radio station, in every store, at every gas station, every few hundred yards on every interstate, every bus stop, every telephone pole, in every magazine and news paper. I don't want to take this medicine, please stop shoving it down my throat. I'm perfectly happy without all of these healthy "aspirations" to guide me in my life.

nickelcitymario 7y ago
> You seem to be saying that advertising is like medicine, it might taste bad but it will end up being good for me in the end. Goodness me, no that's not what I'm saying and I apologize if that's how it came out. The research paper said advertising leads to aspirations, and this is inherently bad because aspirations lead to unhappiness. I'm saying aspirations are a good thing, regardless of their source. I didn't know this was a controversial position. But I'm also agreeing that when advertising creates or emphasizes a non-existent problem to sell you something that doesn't benefit you in the long run, then that's a shitty thing to do. There are many laws in most countries that curb the worse examples of this, and we could almost certainly benefit from more of them (or stronger enforcement... I dunno, not a lawyer). As for the quantity of advertising, I said this in another response as well: How do you intend to limit it? While any ban is obviously a negative to my business, on an ethical standpoint I'm fine with such a ban as long as it's complete. What I'm not ok with is saying "there can only be X number of ads" because THAT's when things get unfair. That's when the advertisers with the biggest pockets will get the advantage, because they'll be the only ones who can afford to buy such a limited supply of ads.
- beart 7y ago
  > As for the quantity of advertising, I said this in another response as well: How do you intend to limit it? While any ban is obviously a negative to my business, on an ethical standpoint I'm fine with such a ban as long as it's complete. What I'm not ok with is saying "there can only be X number of ads" because THAT's when things get unfair. That's when the advertisers with the biggest pockets will get the advantage, because they'll be the only ones who can afford to buy such a limited supply of ads. Just because it's a hard problem to solve doesn't mean it's not a problem worth solving or that there is no solution. That said, I don't think just lowering the number of ads is really getting at what I'm saying. Lowering the number of advertisements doesn't provide me with any more choice, it just makes the current situation less annoying (to whatever degree). If I want a particular thing, I can go out and search for it. I don't need to be told about that thing constantly when I have no initial desire for it. Here is a concrete example. I enjoy films, but I don't watch network or cable television at home, so I generally don't have any idea what new movies are out there. However, when I decide that I feel like watching a movie, I go online and seek out the advertisements (trailers) for those movies. I do this by my own choice. Another example is that I will sometimes check out the recommended videos on YouTube if I'm bored, and these are essentially advertisements for various content creators. Again, I make the specific choice to do this. When I'm driving down the highway, my goal is to get somewhere, not find a local personal injury attorney, and yet I am forced to see sign after sign for these with absolutely no choice in the matter.

iN7h33nD 7y ago

I think that the aspirations that almost all advertisements give to people are actively harmful in every possible way. - It is the main revenue source of most mentally harmful products like social media. A replacement created for the good of the world paid for by taxes with open data would be much preferred. - Has masked how the world really functions via out-right lies and deception. Coke makes you happy, Happy Cows come from California, Diamonds must be given to show love - Allows people with the most money to have the most likely chance of getting elected. - Uses your personal information so that they are more likely to sell you things. - Drug should not be advertised. Why the would a doctor want their patient to ask them for a specific drug??? - Convinced people that single use garbage should have a place in our society. I am sure there are many more negatives, but for now I think this will suffice. Perhaps with enough regulation many of these things could be changed, but I don't see it happening. Advertising can be used for good, see anti-smoking ads, but in its current state it is all bad. I can't think of an aspiration an ad has given me which gave me a problem to fix instead of a reason to consume.

nickelcitymario 7y ago
Since you cherry picked the worst examples, let me cherry pick some of the best: - Ads for charities - Political ads (which are only good or bad if you agree or disagree with their positions) - Ads for schools - Movie trailers (a form of entertainment in it of themselves) Also: I suspect (but don't have the means to prove) a positive correlation between advertising spending and national GDP. Look, if your point is that capitalism is evil, I'm not gonna argue it. But in a free market, advertising creates jobs. It builds companies. It builds economies. When that advertising-free socialist utopia shows up that somehow isn't an evil dictatorship, let me know! Sounds awesome.
- iN7h33nD 7y ago
  I did not cherry pick the worst examples, just the most common. Only one of your examples could possibly lead to a good aspiration in people, charities. Even that seems like a stretch though as many advertisements for charities are scams or to charities that only use a low percentage of the donation for the charities cause. It could push people to look up a list charities and donate, which is why it could be positive. We don't need ads for schools or politicians a person should make their own choice based on impartial data and public debates. Movie trailers in and of themselves are not bad, but as advertisements they only drive people to consume. I can't say that they give positive aspirations. Why do we need to be socialist or a utopia to ban most advertising?

newnewpdro 7y ago

Necessity, not aspiration, is the mother of invention. Please change careers.

nickelcitymario 7y ago
I would, but the position of "snarky internet commentator" has been filled. If only I had pithy quotes that I could paste to make my arguments for me, rather than, I dunno, using original thought.
- cwivbly 7y ago
  Sophistry's worse than snark.
  - nickelcitymario 7y ago
    Are you saying I must be a liar because I’m in advertising? Or that the arguments I’m making here today are meant to deceive? Or just a random opinion about sophistry?

darkarmani 7y ago

> Therefore I don't agree with the notion that advertising is inherently bad because it raises people's expectations for themselves. It's more nuanced than that. They are using advertising as shorthand for commercial advertising. The aspirations they are encouraging are for products. This want is what is causing the unhappiness. They could increase aspiration for positive things, but that is not what advertisers are doing.

nickelcitymario 7y ago
> They could increase aspiration for positive things, but that is not what advertisers are doing. I maintain that it depends on what is being advertised. It can be used for good, evil, and everything in between. What percentage of advertising falls into which category is largely subjective. If the product is good for society, then the ads for it are a good for society too. If the product harms society, the ads for it magnify that harm. Maybe that's what I should have said right from the start: advertising is a magnifier of whatever is already there. If the product sucks, advertising will help it fail faster. If it helps people, advertising will allow it to help even more people.

kerkeslager 7y ago

> Advertising isn't inherently bad, any more than aspirations are inherently bad. It boils down to what's being advertised and how honest the ads are about it. They aren't honest about it. An honest appraisal of a product would include all relevant information, including if a competitor's product is better or cheaper, or if the product has problems that might be worse than the solution. That's what Consumer Reports-type sites do, what friends/family do, what doctors/mechanics do, what minimalists do. It's not what advertisers do. The very most honest advertising is lying by omission, and most advertising is much worse than that. If you were trying to help consumers find the best products, you'd work for an independent review site that accepts money from consumers rather than producers so that you're actually accountable to the people you help. Advertising isn't there to help consumers--it fundamentally is the wrong way to help consumers.

nickelcitymario 7y ago
> Advertising isn't there to help consumers--it fundamentally is the wrong way to help consumers. Advertising helps businesses. Businesses serve consumers. Businesses wouldn't spend a dime on advertising if it didn't need to in order to stay in business. Ergo, advertising serves consumers, albeit indirectly. > They aren't honest about it. Has any advertiser ever claimed to give you the full picture? Both sides of the argument? No, of course not. It's a sales pitch. You know it's a sales pitch. They know you know it's a sales pitch. They know that you know that they're only presenting the positive sales points. You know that they know that you know. Where's the dishonesty, exactly? It's like going on a date and saying "You know, sometimes I don't shave. Or brush my teeth. Or wear a nice outfit. I only did those to make a good impression. There's a really good chance there's someone better for you out there." Of COURSE advertisers are putting their best foot forward. Does your resume list every time you were ever late for work? When you signed up for a credit card, did you tell the bank that you were late on rent a few months ago? When you applied for post-secondary, did you tell them about that math tutor you needed to get through trig? How freakishly up-front do you need the world to be to live up to your standards?
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > Advertising helps businesses. Businesses serve consumers. No, businesses serve themselves. Corporations are not your friends. Sometimes their interests align with consumers' but not always. > Has any advertiser ever claimed to give you the full picture? Both sides of the argument? No, of course not. It's a sales pitch. You know it's a sales pitch. They know you know it's a sales pitch. They know that you know that they're only presenting the positive sales points. You know that they know that you know. > Where's the dishonesty, exactly? Your claim is basically that if they don't claim to tell the truth, and everybody knows they're lying, it's no longer lying. > How freakishly up-front do you need the world to be to live up to your standards? How about we start with something simple like not pretending that advertisers jamming their ads down my throat is an altruistic act?

titzer 7y ago

> But virtually every good thing people have ever done was because of their aspirations. I'll think of this comment every time I see an ad that makes me "aspire" to better myself and others by giving my money to someone else.

nickelcitymario 7y ago
I suppose you work for free?

asdfqwer234 7y ago

"...[I]s also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded fancy schools like Harvard" there's a huge false equivalency here; I'll let you figure out which one it is. How much consumer advertising appeals to "good" aspiration and fills a need which is fairly priced (ie doesn't have brand/marketing/silly subliminal cultural messaging priced in).

nickelcitymario 7y ago
When I talked about inventions, I was talking about aspirations. I.e. whenever we do anything it's because we aspire to something better. Someone was cold, stumbled upon fire and saw that it kept them warm, and aspired to harness that so they could be warm all the time. I don't see how that's controversial. As for how much advertising appeals to good aspirations, I have no idea. Probably not a lot of it. I wasn't defending all of advertising; I was saying don't throw the entire industry under the bus. I, for one, try to do only honest work for companies that provide goods and services that I believe in. Not everyone in this industry gets that freedom, but most of us do our best. I get it, though. It's easy to hate on advertisers, just as it's easy to hate on salespeople and lawyers and politicians and stock brokers. I happen to consider all these professions necessary to our economy, though. I don't think it's a coincidence that the most prosperous societies have the most of these professions, including advertisers.