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IMHO it's misleading and unhelpful to talk strictly about advertising. Instead we should be talking about marketing, for which advertising is one (hugely signif

by jmyeet 4y ago

IMHO it's misleading and unhelpful to talk strictly about advertising. Instead we should be talking about marketing, for which advertising is one (hugely significant) part. Marketing is a key component of building, growing and maintaining a business. There is no "build it and they will come". Many an interesting product has died on the vine because of poor or lacking marketing. Marketing is a two-way street. It's about understanding who your potential customers are, how large your market is, who your competitors are, what is important to your potentiaal customers, who buys your products, why they buy them and so on. The other side, which includes advertising, is making people aware of your product or brand. It may include a direct call to action (eg "buy this widget now") or it may just be creating a perception for your brand. A lot of Coca-Cola and even Apple advertising falls into this category. It's really disappointing to see some of the comments on this thread. Comments like "I built a business with no advertising so you don't need it either". The only way this is likely true is if you sell to a small number of businesses and your initial customers were former colleagues or otherwise known to you via networking. This is not representative of how business growth and marketing works and shouldn't be taken as such. There can and should be limits on advertising. When, where, what, that sort of thing. I personally think that advertising in children's shows for example should be banned. So should pharmaceuticals (a uniquely US problem). Some things are understandably heavily restricted (eg gambling, alcohol, tobacco, cannabis). But a ban on billboards? What does this achieve? The objections seem to be largely aesthetic. That seems highly performative.

Bakary 4y ago
It's not really performative. Billboards occupy a lot of space, both mental and physical. I've had the privilege to walk through ad-free cities and it's like night and day. Once you return to the rest it suddenly becomes clear how garish and vile the ads we've become used to are, and how amateurish the deal we've struck is. Billboards don't bring in that much revenue to the collective compared to what they do to cities. From your perspective, you want to grow a business and become wealthy. That's fine, but why should we participate in that goal and tolerate a significant negative externality for very little reward? The idea that your business should be able to blot the public space for profit is a false premise, just one that people have grown used to for historical reasons.

by jmyeet 4y ago

Bakary 4y ago

It's not really performative. Billboards occupy a lot of space, both mental and physical. I've had the privilege to walk through ad-free cities and it's like night and day. Once you return to the rest it suddenly becomes clear how garish and vile the ads we've become used to are, and how amateurish the deal we've struck is. Billboards don't bring in that much revenue to the collective compared to what they do to cities. From your perspective, you want to grow a business and become wealthy. That's fine, but why should we participate in that goal and tolerate a significant negative externality for very little reward? The idea that your business should be able to blot the public space for profit is a false premise, just one that people have grown used to for historical reasons.