5 ms·

Advertising is not nothing.

by kawfey 7y ago

battery_cowboy 7y ago
It's not, in any way, useful. Advertising is the least productive thing we do as a species, it's just lying to get people to buy something they don't need in the first place, because if they needed it, they wouldn't need advertising.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  You've never owned a business and it's telling.
  - komali2 7y ago
    What kind of response to this are you hoping for?
    - chrisco255 7y ago
      None. Ideally someone would investigate the history of advertising and why it has become the multi-hundred billion dollar industry that it is. Ideally someone would investigate with curiosity: why do these businesses spend so much money on advertising? What benefits do they get from it? Given that it's such a significant industry, what would the economy look like in a world without advertising? They might also ask themselves with some degree of introspection, if they have ever been persuaded to purchase a product or service on account of some ad and been satisfied with said purchase.
      - battery_cowboy 7y ago
        Sounds like the words of a useless advertiser.
      - komali2 6y ago
        It sounds like you aren't open at all to a perspective that challenges the efficacy of advertising, or is skeptical of the benefits of capitalism in general. It sounds like you'd prefer these people don't make their views known in your presence. Your comment indicated that you wanted to punish them by making the mistake of doing so.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- lgessler 7y ago
  I think this position is a little too extreme. Many ads fit your description, but some don't. In many parts of the United States, for instance, you simply need a car to live life, and car ads have the power to shape car buyers' choices in these areas. In a case like this, it's not true that they're buying "something they don't need in the first place".
- dangrossman 7y ago
  I need food. I like pizza. I would not know that a new pizza place opened a few miles from home except that they sent a postcard to my house in the mail -- an ad. Now I buy pizza from them.
- WoodenChair 7y ago
  > it's just lying to get people to buy something Much of the most effective advertising is honest and factual. For a discussion of this by one of the advertising greats, see the book "Ogilvy on Advertising." [0] [0] https://amzn.to/2wGGovm https://amzn.to/2wGGovm
- legitster 7y ago
  > it's just lying to get people to buy something they don't need in the first place, because if they needed it, they wouldn't need advertising. "If I would have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." In the real world, you definitely 100% need to get in front of people to convince them that your solution solves their problems. Or make them realize they have a problem in the first place.
  - komali2 7y ago
    To be fair, Henry Ford and his close friends driving cars around Detroit probably would have gotten enough attention on its own novel merit.
    - legitster 7y ago
      Sure. Putting on demonstrations of your product would fall under a related branch of marketing.
    - projektfu 7y ago
      They’d still have to put a sign on it saying “only $825”. Otherwise why not buy a Rolls Royce?
- goatherders 7y ago
  " Advertising is the least productive thing we do as a species" LOL.
- serf 7y ago
  You'd probably like Bill Hicks' perspective on it. [0]: https://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-annotated https://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-a... [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gd01vfKfr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gd01vfKfr0
  - battery_cowboy 7y ago
    Great stuff, thanks.
- tempestn 7y ago
  Strongly disagree. If you have a crappy product, generally you won't be able to advertise effectively. People won't buy your product if it doesn't look useful, and even if you manage to trick some initial buyers, negative reviews and such will likely catch up to you. On the other hand, if you create a great product but don't advertise at all, it can take a very long time to grow organically, since you don't have any initial users to share your product. Instead you can advertise to get that initial user base, and then your happy customers will help you to continue to grow. You could stop advertising at that point, but as long as your product is good you can probably grow even faster by continuing to market it to people. Now sure, a lot of marketing is zero-sum. IE, Coke vs Pepsi and similar: ads whose purpose is to sway you between well-known competitors. But a lot of it does provide discovery for unknown products too. And finally, most people expect it. I'm not exaggerating when I say at autotempest we get an order of magnitude more people complaining that we don't advertise enough than that we advertise too much. Often this will be new users who say something like, "This is great—wish I'd known about it years ago! You guys should do better marketing." Of course nothing would have stopped them from searching for a service like ours. We rank very highly on Google and such; but most people don't work that way.
duskwuff 7y ago
If an advertisement will be displayed in a location where no one is likely to encounter it, will advertisers really pay for it? (The answer is "probably not". But I'm mostly playing off the "if tree falls in a forest…" snowclone.)
- munk-a 7y ago
  Yes, yes they will. Some advertising is... effective (in that it effectively beats the existence of your product into the unwilling consumer's brain meat). But a lot of money still gets sunk into popup ads and print media, most people don't even see either of those anymore. You're better off buying google ad-words targeted at furry communities.
  - robjan 7y ago
    I think there's a difference between seeing an ad on a billboard and ignoring it vs. an ad on a site that's just one big advertisement. Most people will not visit a site that exists purely for the purpose of advertising.
    - duskwuff 7y ago
      Precisely. The success that the original Million Dollar Homepage enjoyed was almost entirely because it was a novelty in a number of ways -- the World Wide Web was new to the public, web advertising was new, web pages with organically created content were new... Nowadays, it takes a lot more to get that kind of attention. I don't think it'd be possible without some kind of groundbreaking new technology -- well beyond anything that's on display here.
  - duskwuff 7y ago
    > You're better off buying google ad-words targeted at furry communities. Uh... funny you should mention that, actually. I'm a member of that community, and I've seen certain mainstream advertisers target that audience in some rather specific and intelligent ways. :)
    - 7y ago

Advertising is not nothing.

by kawfey 7y ago

Advertising is not nothing.

It's not, in any way, useful. Advertising is the least productive thing we do as a species, it's just lying to get people to buy something they don't need in the first place, because if they needed it, they wouldn't need advertising.

chrisco255 7y ago
You've never owned a business and it's telling.
- komali2 7y ago
  What kind of response to this are you hoping for?
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    None. Ideally someone would investigate the history of advertising and why it has become the multi-hundred billion dollar industry that it is. Ideally someone would investigate with curiosity: why do these businesses spend so much money on advertising? What benefits do they get from it? Given that it's such a significant industry, what would the economy look like in a world without advertising? They might also ask themselves with some degree of introspection, if they have ever been persuaded to purchase a product or service on account of some ad and been satisfied with said purchase.
    - battery_cowboy 7y ago
      Sounds like the words of a useless advertiser.
    - komali2 6y ago
      It sounds like you aren't open at all to a perspective that challenges the efficacy of advertising, or is skeptical of the benefits of capitalism in general. It sounds like you'd prefer these people don't make their views known in your presence. Your comment indicated that you wanted to punish them by making the mistake of doing so.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
lgessler 7y ago
I think this position is a little too extreme. Many ads fit your description, but some don't. In many parts of the United States, for instance, you simply need a car to live life, and car ads have the power to shape car buyers' choices in these areas. In a case like this, it's not true that they're buying "something they don't need in the first place".
dangrossman 7y ago
I need food. I like pizza. I would not know that a new pizza place opened a few miles from home except that they sent a postcard to my house in the mail -- an ad. Now I buy pizza from them.
WoodenChair 7y ago
> it's just lying to get people to buy something Much of the most effective advertising is honest and factual. For a discussion of this by one of the advertising greats, see the book "Ogilvy on Advertising." [0] [0] https://amzn.to/2wGGovm https://amzn.to/2wGGovm
legitster 7y ago
> it's just lying to get people to buy something they don't need in the first place, because if they needed it, they wouldn't need advertising. "If I would have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." In the real world, you definitely 100% need to get in front of people to convince them that your solution solves their problems. Or make them realize they have a problem in the first place.
- komali2 7y ago
  To be fair, Henry Ford and his close friends driving cars around Detroit probably would have gotten enough attention on its own novel merit.
  - legitster 7y ago
    Sure. Putting on demonstrations of your product would fall under a related branch of marketing.
  - projektfu 7y ago
    They’d still have to put a sign on it saying “only $825”. Otherwise why not buy a Rolls Royce?
goatherders 7y ago
" Advertising is the least productive thing we do as a species" LOL.
serf 7y ago
You'd probably like Bill Hicks' perspective on it. [0]: https://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-annotated https://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-a... [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gd01vfKfr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gd01vfKfr0
- battery_cowboy 7y ago
  Great stuff, thanks.
tempestn 7y ago
Strongly disagree. If you have a crappy product, generally you won't be able to advertise effectively. People won't buy your product if it doesn't look useful, and even if you manage to trick some initial buyers, negative reviews and such will likely catch up to you. On the other hand, if you create a great product but don't advertise at all, it can take a very long time to grow organically, since you don't have any initial users to share your product. Instead you can advertise to get that initial user base, and then your happy customers will help you to continue to grow. You could stop advertising at that point, but as long as your product is good you can probably grow even faster by continuing to market it to people. Now sure, a lot of marketing is zero-sum. IE, Coke vs Pepsi and similar: ads whose purpose is to sway you between well-known competitors. But a lot of it does provide discovery for unknown products too. And finally, most people expect it. I'm not exaggerating when I say at autotempest we get an order of magnitude more people complaining that we don't advertise enough than that we advertise too much. Often this will be new users who say something like, "This is great—wish I'd known about it years ago! You guys should do better marketing." Of course nothing would have stopped them from searching for a service like ours. We rank very highly on Google and such; but most people don't work that way.

duskwuff 7y ago

If an advertisement will be displayed in a location where no one is likely to encounter it, will advertisers really pay for it? (The answer is "probably not". But I'm mostly playing off the "if tree falls in a forest…" snowclone.)

munk-a 7y ago
Yes, yes they will. Some advertising is... effective (in that it effectively beats the existence of your product into the unwilling consumer's brain meat). But a lot of money still gets sunk into popup ads and print media, most people don't even see either of those anymore. You're better off buying google ad-words targeted at furry communities.
- robjan 7y ago
  I think there's a difference between seeing an ad on a billboard and ignoring it vs. an ad on a site that's just one big advertisement. Most people will not visit a site that exists purely for the purpose of advertising.
  - duskwuff 7y ago
    Precisely. The success that the original Million Dollar Homepage enjoyed was almost entirely because it was a novelty in a number of ways -- the World Wide Web was new to the public, web advertising was new, web pages with organically created content were new... Nowadays, it takes a lot more to get that kind of attention. I don't think it'd be possible without some kind of groundbreaking new technology -- well beyond anything that's on display here.
- duskwuff 7y ago
  > You're better off buying google ad-words targeted at furry communities. Uh... funny you should mention that, actually. I'm a member of that community, and I've seen certain mainstream advertisers target that audience in some rather specific and intelligent ways. :)
  - 7y ago