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> Advertisers love pointing these situations out because it makes what they do sound helpful. But they are by no means the most common case. This is my point.
by shuntress 4y ago
> Advertisers love pointing these situations out because it makes what they do sound helpful. But they are by no means the most common case.
This is my point.
Advertising is not inherently bad. To explain that further for the back of the class, advertising is not inherently good. Advertising can be GOOD OR BAD.
- bombcar 4y agoI think it general we can say "advertising is not wanted" - bar exceptional side cases like the Super Bowl ads, very few people seek out the advertising that costs big money. I love catalogs from the companies I buy from, and I love their websites, but those are marketing not advertising. The vast majority of advertising is at best a "necessary bad" (not per se evil, perhaps).
- shuntress 4y agoI think in general we can say "BAD advertising is not wanted". Good advertising (like, for example, catalogues from the companies you love and buy from) is, in general, desirable.
- bombcar 4y agoIt's probably not at all the "industry" terms, but I would divide "push advertising" (TV, radio, web ads, blah blah blah) from "pull advertising" (going to the company website, asking for the catalog, etc). What is sad is how "push advertising" can become something actually desired - once you buy into a luxury brand, for example, you WANT advertising that reinforces just how good and sexy you are for having bought product.
- nehal3m 4y agoFound the advertiser.
- CobrastanJorji 4y agoCompanies intensely track the percentage of catalogs mailed out that result in an order. They call this number the "order rate," and it's a very important stat for catalogs. You know what's generally seen as a very good order rate? Two percent. Even within that genre, actually deriving any enjoyment or finding a useful product is the exception rather than the rule, and in a time when anyone who wants to see what that company has to offer can check the website, they're effectively useless now. There are a very small number of catalogs that people are excited to get because the contents are neat. The Sears Holiday Wishbook. Hobbyist magazines. Insane ads for 3D glasses and plans to convert a vacuum cleaner into a hovercraft in Boy Scout magazines. But these are needles in a haystack of recycled paper.
- CobrastanJorji 4y agoEh, I guess it really depends on how you define "inherently bad." For example, I'd also call "shooting people" inherently bad, but there are certainly cases where a specific shooting is a net good (self defense, etc). It sounds like your definition is different and may require any possible instance to be bad.
- shuntress 4y agoWe could spend all day spinning our wheels on increasingly pedantic hypotheticals but it's not exactly productive discussion. Non-consensual acts of violence are always inherently bad even when they are "provoked" by reprehensible acts (three rights make a left and all that). "shooting people" with X-Rays to image their internal structures for medical purposes is generally accepted to be good.
- santoshalper 4y agoYes, and I'd say the same thing about advertising, though obviously on a lesser scale. All advertising is bad. Some advertising is merely less bad. Advertising that appears in Apps or Software I paid for is hot garbage 100% of the time.
- shkkmo 4y agoBy your own argument and definition, advertising is inherently bad: Advertising being good is a edge case that requires specific circumstances.
- SuperCuber 4y agoI'm pretty sure that is the point GP was trying to make