There’s a lot of problems with advertising on Google, YouTube, Instagram etc.
And it Incentivises these big tech companies to collect all your data and spy on you etc.
But where should advertisers advertise?
Let’s say everyone switches to Paid for Search, Paid for Email, stops using social media etc.
Where would advertising swith to?
If someone starts a small business from home selling pillows, how do they reach customers?
Nowhere.
Let advertising die, it’s propaganda for companies. If I have to see even one other ad for the rest of my life, it would be too many
When I need something I buy it. I don’t need someone to show me it
They can advertise in hell. Next question.
Seriously. Advertising is worse than a zero sum game. It’s an arms race. Not only does it eat into profits of every company that advertises, it causes prices to go way up to pay for even more advertising. We regular people just keep paying more and more to be advertised to.
No ad. Only Public Service Announcement(sortable).
Long live valid PSA. Thanks National Oark Service (US)
(Maybe personal service announcement, for coposters who have gotten used to snug. . . . but alao save some sort profiles nbd X,3)
in hell
Should they? I don’t watch ads and still hear about new stuff or see it on the shelves and don’t feel like I’m out of touch (at least in the things I care about).
Maybe everyone should do public keynotes like tech companies and then people can go watch it if they care.
Public transit, sports facilities, malls, and other pedestrian-focused places where people congregate in person. Advertising directly helps make public transit and spaces more affordable for everyone and perhaps makes or breaks financial viability at all in some cases. It’s also harder to violate people’s privacy with a physical ad somewhere on display for everyone. But I’d say there is a line on when it’s overdone, especially in professional sports stadiums.
Fuck billboards and anything that makes driving less safe though.
When I’m looking to buy something instead of looking for entertainment.
When I’m checking a local flyer or few to see the best deal on insert grocery item I’d love it if advertisers could just go, “well, we’re the cheapest this week on cans of green-beans so… walk over here and buy a few.”
Make it efficient instead of something I’m literally willing to spend my time finding an adblock for. I’m not even opposed to personalized ads. I think it’s a great idea in theory. But scummy corps screw the world over and this is just one weirdly specific aspect of it.
Yes! I’d love ethical personalized adds. Show me exactly what I am looking for, when i want to look for it and nothing else ever. In get to see way fewer ads and the advertisers have to pay less because they have to show fewer ads.
But as long as collecting and holding my data is done by capitalism it can never be a positive thing and has to be avoided at all times.
Reputation and word of mouth. Fire the marketers and use that money to make a better product. Stop wasting everyone’s time. Spend time making stuff available through distribution channels. Ads waste everyone’s time and money. When I see any ad, it tells me your competitor is likely a better quality product I should seek out. No one has a right to waste my time.
This is my preference, but even then today I have to look at every recommendation with scrutiny. Astroturfing is only getting worse and worse.
It’s hard to rely on people I personally know to have previously purchased some niche things I need, or trust that their selection criteria are exactly the same as mine, so I have to go online and look deeper. But then when I go online, I have to accept that a lot of what I find will be fake users posting fake experiences to promote the product they want to sell, so I just end up trying to find as broad a sample as I can and trust my gut.
It’s a catch 22. A lot of good products die due to people not knowing they exist (or remembering).
I have no issues with informational based advertising. Basically the polite “we exist” or “we’ve got this now” type adverts. I take offence to adverts trying to mess with my mental familiarity levels. I’m doubly offended when they get aggressive with pushing that on me.
A great example is steam ads. It gives you some when you first start it. It’s trivial to skip or ignore them however. It also sits back and gets out of the way as soon as you’re not interested.
The boring truth is that marketing works, so if we can’t like upgrade our monkey brains it’s not going away anytime soon IMO.
That sounds like something a marketer would say. GET ‘EM, BOYS!! brought to you by Pepperidge Farm. Pepperidge Farm: Remember when we did the “remember when” thing? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
If you’re selling me a new brand of cheese give me a discount at the store and I’ll try it.
If you’re selling me an expensive technical piece of equipment send review stuff to various people and organisations that test them.
If you’re selling me a car get to the top of reliability rankings.
Pillows from home: try etsy. If they are not special hand crafted filled with endangered owl feathers or whatever you’ll have a hard time convincing me it’s worth the effort over going to the pillow store or ordering from ikea.
If you’re selling me fast food have a giant arrow pointing at your building so i can find the way there when I’m out driving.
If you’re selling me a subscription: good luck.
If you’re selling me insurance I’ll send you a RFQ every few years so I can compare to my current supplier. (And ask others who have been covered by your insurance if you were good to deal with).
If you’re selling me a new brand of cheese give me a discount at the store and I’ll try it.
Sometimes it can’t be that cut and dry though. E.g. even at a discount, there is no way a good pack of aged cheddar will be as cheap as the orange-colored plastic called Kraft Singles. Someone who has only ever eaten Kraft Singles won’t know what they’re missing and will just keep buying the cheaper option they know.
The vendor would need to first make folks aware of the difference in quality to convince people to buy. But this is one thing I think stores like Costco get right, at least. There are always people offering free samples of their product. Let the product speak for itself, for free, with no obligation to buy if you don’t like it.
If you’re selling me an expensive technical piece of equipment send review stuff to various people and organisations that test them.
This is also not foolproof because I’ve heard of reviewers being cut off from free products to review if they don’t give a positive rating. There are a lot of “sponsored reviews” as well which are, in fairness, usually disclosed, but they’re something you have to sift through to find less-biased takes.
And tracking me and showing me intrusive ads makes these problems go away?
The original question was if they can’t use the surveillance advertising how will they market their stuff. My suggestions are not without issues, but they are how they can use my shopping habits to sell me their stuff without tracking me.
No no, just that there are some shortcomings with certain approaches that might still impact a company’s ability to reasonably reach customers, light emphasis on “reasonably”.
But it’s just something that they’ll have to figure out how to work around, not something those of us who are sick and tired of the ad spam should have to just accept as necessary evils.
I’m otherwise with you all the way.
Your post suggests you’re operating under the assumption that advertising itself is a valid activity. The example about a new small business seems totally legit.
But in reality most advertising money is spent by companies like Coca Cola, that we all already know. And they know that too, which means they know for a fact that continuing to spend money on advertising pays off.
This can only be true if advertising isn’t about awareness of your brand, but about directly influencing buying decision. In other words, it’s brainwashing.
A small business should get known through word of mouth, through endorsements in pillow-related media and communities (in this example). If their product is a good one and they get the right people talking about it, no advertising is needed to succeed as a business. Only line-must-go-up companies that are not content with what they can achieve with an honest way of doing business need advertising to sell even more crap.
IMHO it is entirely valid to reject all forms of advertising, and most of it should be outlawed. As a species we’re wasting a colossal amount of effort and energy on something that shouldn’t even be a thing.
But in reality most advertising money is spent by companies like Coca Cola, that we all already know. And they know that too, which means they know for a fact that continuing to spend money on advertising pays off.
This is something I found myself recognizing not too long ago. Why would a company like Coca-Cola, already the dominant force in the soft drinks market, need to spend so much money on advertising? It’s not to attract new customers, but to drown out their competition. If you have big players like Coke continuing to spend millions on each ad buy, smaller competitors get priced out and their message is lost in the signal noise.
reject all forms of advertising
Yes. If I need something, I’ll go looking for it. If your product is a decent solution to my problem, I’ll find it and buy it when I need it. If you want visibility and/or publicity, you can advertise on your own platform, or do reviews, beta-testing, or press-releases in relevant channels.
There is literally no reason that you should ever shove your product in my face. The people whose job it is to do the shoving should be fired, and replaced by people that actually contribute to solving real problems. We have more than enough of those.
honestly… ads wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t so annoying
I’m going to get down votes but small businesses should advertise everywhere to get as much traction as they can for their business.
What people are saying in comments are good in theory with word of mouth, good product etc but making a good product doesnt guarantee that your product gets known. Additionally, while I’m similar to other Lemmings as I don’t use any other social media and hate advertising, I know advertising works and I hate it. Its bad but I know a lot of people that purchase things because they saw it on IG or whatever (ad vs influencer). And many companies that have a larger advertising budget will smother out smaller mom and pop businesses for more money too. Unfortunate truths. Emerging small businesses cannot do without social media. Restaurants, pillows, etc. I also dont think most people do a lot of research into what they buy. Anecdotally too many people I know have crappy pillows. They dont think and grab a pillow from Costco or target.
To your point, an ad would at least get people to think about other brands. They see an ad for a pillow, think they need a new one, may buy the one they see, test it out, and be done with… I think everyone needs a nice pillow but too many people I know have like 10 feathered pillows. Its a shame.
Related:
I listened to this podcast about mattresses and it also has a lot to do with advertising, direct to home mattresses, affiliate links, how powerful mattress companies are, etc. . It was really good but also shows how massive and difficult it is to break into markets.
I take sleep hygiene pretty seriously
Anyways, there’s a reason why there’s so much $$$ in advertising. I don’t think anyone can deny that. I personally don’t like invasive personalized ads and would actively not buy when I run into them but know I’m the minority.
Rather than following you around, they should go to where the entertainment is and advertise there.
I have no problem seeing an advertisement for something I’m interested in when I’m looking at something I’m interested in that is also directly connected to that thing.
For the most part, I only marginally skip past sponsored stuff on YouTube, for instance.
Or when a tech reviewer is reviewing a piece of tech that I might be interested in buying, that’s excellent marketing.
But if I’m talking to my friends and they tell me about a cool widget that they like and then I go home and I turn on my computer and in a completely different environment, an advertisement for that widget pops up while I’m looking for something completely different, then I get really, really upset and it guarantees that I will never purchase that widget.
I think sponsoring people who already use your product is a valid way to get more attention but thats about it. I do everything i can to avoid advertising as i find it personally offensive in the same way some people find pornography offensive and i think it should be treated similarly.
