A world without advertising

Seems like the article is just setting up a strawman. You can't send bulk email, so you can't initiate contact at all, so you can't set up an industry event? Seems unlikely -- the result does not follow from the preconditions.

Basically, a world without unsolicited advertising would be one where you type "widgets" into Google and get a list of companies that make widgets. A lot of people do this even in the world with advertising.

Similarly, how do you know that Target exists down the street? Not from ads you see while reading The Atlantic... you know it exists because you can see it with your eyes.

So anyway, this argument is not very good. A world without spam and banner ads would be just fine. I'm already living in it.

Advertising is only annoying when it isn't targeted enough. Perfectly targeted advertising will be indistinguishable from any other piece of information in the near future with advanced recommendation engines.

Once everyone is online (in some sense), and that data is made open and accessible (perhaps Semantic Web)... then advertising will still exist. But you will pay a small amount for your message to go out to the exact people that you want it to go out to, in this case, bakeries. And the message won't blanket-out to every bakery, only those that don't already have a fancy bakery business app... plus it will focus primarily on bakeries which hint at a need for such an app (based on their online postings).

I moved to Warsaw Poland in 1992 for one year of foreign study. The wall had come down 3 years earlier and Poland was quickly transitioning. There were no billboards when I moved there. Nothing. Nada. There might have been the occasional Coca Cola sign on the side of a kiosk but billboards didn't exist.

I distinctly remember when I saw the first billboard in Warsaw. After the first one they just started popping up everywhere, on all the streets. I remember the psychological realization that Poland was now somehow joining in some international conversation. The adverts made me feel less isolated in Poland. But also made me feel small and insignificant. Seeing adverts for the first time in a year, and the first time in my new country, was a catalyst for a psychological reevaluation of my place in the world.

This experience led me to believe that advertising disempowers while also connecting people. And its affect is psychological. Not physical but still profound.

There are lots of ways to advertise that don't resemble cold calling, spam, or banner ads. Probably the simplest is article writing.

Write about a problem your customers have, and explain how your product can solve it. Write about a subject popular with your target audience and bring your product into the story (or just stick in a promo paragraph at the end).

If you write well and have a good product, people will find you, and they will tell their friends.

I'm confused: How are you solving problems for a profession when you know nobody who does it? And if you're solving problems for people you do know, why is there difficulty getting the word out?

Also, for what its worth: tech isn't the only industry with magazines, listservs, and conventions.

Any smart baker who wants to increase efficiency and lower the costs or who wants to grow or at least remain in the rapidly changing market will never ignore the industry and will try to keep up with latest industry news and listen to recommendations from his fellow bakers. If your app/software really helps bakers save money, increase efficiency, keep the costs down, etc. don't worry, those smart bakers will somehow hear about, you don't have to spam or buy superbowl ads, attending a few bakery related industry expos, etc would be enough. Those bakers will hear you, but those who don't, you don't need them, they are going to be out of the market in a few years anyway. They say only half of the money spent on advertising was worth it, but which half? Nobody knows. While the half that worked are the ads that hit targeted consumers, the other half just annoyed people. Now when even offline targeting will become possible I don't think advertisers will be still willing to pay the other half just to annoy people where they can spend half the budget and target that half of people who are potential consumers.

Hmm...

That's a good question.

I'd first ask what is advertising a direct response to? And what was eliminating advertising a direct response to?

For the former, I believe the first ad was placed in like the 1700s. Wait... I'll Google it... the first newspaper ad was placed in 1704 by a seller in Oyster Bay who wanted a buyer for their estate. (Thanks to AdAge for that one: http://adage.com/century/timeline/index.html)

So, I'd say that advertising is a form of getting the word out about something, when you know that someone might need it, but you're not exactly who specifically.

Then eliminating advertising would be getting rid of it because too many people were trying to get the word out, so much so that the channels for even knowing what was relevant to the receiver were saturated beyond belief.

I'd say get rid of the profit incentive, not the advertising. If there's no profit incentive for advertising, but instead direct communal bartering gain, then fewer people would advertise. The adverts you would see would be direct needs targeted to direct people who needed that stuff.

This reminds me of Craig's List. I used to love Craig's List because it was so much about community, and people sharing their needs and or looking to fill others' needs. However, when the traffic grew, the profit incentive grew, now Craig's List is over saturated. Way, way over saturated. That's why I'm now a member of Quentin's Friends. I pay $15 bucks a quarter for access to a community of people where there's minimal profit incentive driven advertising and posting, and more communal driven exchanges.

I think product sales is a game of incomplete information in which sellers don't know what each buyer wants and buyers don't necessarily know what they want either. It seems to me that advertising, which is effectively gambling on consumers' unknown desires, is the only way for either party to discover that hidden knowledge of what buyers want -- a commercial Monte Carlo simulation of sorts.

"If I had asked my customers what they wanted," Henry Ford once said, "they would have said a faster horse."

I don't have a problem with passive advertising. What I find annoying is the advertising that steals the most precious thing I have - time. Spam emails, cold calls and link baiting scraper sites fall into that category.

If you really think your product is in my best interest, pay me to listen to your pitch. Otherwise, place your ad on a web site containing interesting original content or get a web page and let me google you if I need your service/product.

In Cary, NC, signs are heavily regulated. Driving around the city is quite peaceful as a result; there isn't much, if any advertising visible. People know what they want and need, and know where to get it, so it's not problematic. However, in the software space, there have been times that I would not have known about a helpful piece of software if it were not advertised.

> "Imagining for a moment that we live in such an ideal world, how will people find out about new products or services?"

They look for them. I realize that part of salesmanship is making people feel they need something that they did not know existed. The problem is most sales people seem to think that you need whatever they're pandering regardless of whether you actually do. So I'd rather leave the decision of whether I need something or not to myself rather than to salesmen.

Maybe what you're really asking for is not "how will they find out about them" but rather "how will I make them find out"? The answer is you won't. The internet is good enough, thank you. Maybe you'll be covered by my favourite blog or magazine, or I'll hear about you from a colleague.

We are already heading towards a world where the advertising someone is exposed to depends on their expressed interests. Advertising the user wants is no longer annoying, it is useful and helpful. If advertising is so negative we could start calling directed advertising 'advice'.

Site wants a lame login to comment, so I'll just do it here:

The solution is you need to know some bakers, who have baker friends. In theory you'd have already developed these connections while working on your bakery software. (Seeking advice on what they'd find useful + testing of early versions)

On advertising more generally, I was once opposed to using adblock and such since it theoretically hurt the ability for sites to pay their bills. Now that intrusive user tracking has become more popular, I figure all bets are off. I think that advertising's worst enemy is itself.

Baker A: lives in a cave and consumes zero information

Baker B: actively pulls in information about surroundings

If the product you introduce actually generates substantial value for bakers, then Baker A will be forced out of the market by Baker B. In the very unlikely event the entire market of bakers is type A, then you launch your own bakery and make a killing. In the unlikely event there are plenty of type B Bakers but none of them have started an information pull source, then you launch your own information pull source and make a killing.

Advertising is obnoxious when it is interruptive. Surely, the bakers would like to read more about your product when they are looking for software solutions for bakeries. But interruptive ads (like cold calling, TV ads etc.) do not respect the audience's context.

Make your product easily discoverable but only with the right targeting. And avoid push-based advertising like bulk emails, SMS, cold calls.

And here's how that world without advertising would look

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonydemarco/sets/72157600075508...

Just came about it on Flickr a few days ago, coincidentally.

Here's another idea... in world without advertising, there would be a Baker News site that the cutting-edge bakeries would visit and participate in. The hacker would post a link to their software there, and have a chance of it reaching the most forward-thinking bakeries.

There is a difference between ads that intrude in our lives or attempt to influence us and those that serve to gently inform us of something valuable. I think we need more of the latter and less of the former.

I'd much prefer there was one place to go when you need to buy something. One directory where companies would place their announcements about their products services with full descriptions and current prices and cathegorize it in all ways possible. Directory would be diligently moderated and flaws of the system that could give some people unfair advantage would be fixed daily.

It almost already happened for used goods. If you want to buy used good you go to ebay. If you want to sell used good you adertise it on ebay.

This article has an interesting premise.

Some products spread because they are so high quality. Google became a giant because its search was superb, Starbucks its experience great, and Facebook so life-enhancing.

But advertising is just a part of free enterprise. Such quick successes are the exception, and advertising can genuinely create awareness of value adding answers.

Word of mouth? If a product is good, people will talk about it (there's certainly no shortage of avenues to publish your thoughts nowadays).

I already live in a world without ads, thanks to adblock plus (and the fact I don't watch TV, because we have no room for it in our tiny living room, and we didn't care enough to make room for it).

I find out about interesting stuff using the internet. Blogs, stackoverflow, HN, forums, word of mouth, etc.

Wait? People need to have heard of a product before they'll buy it? And people who make products need to be the ones to tell people about them? Next you'll try to tell me water is wet or that the earth revolves around the Sun. Surely you have something to add to the subject other than truisms.

A world without _bad_ advertising:

Opt-in + Opt-out advertising.

Asking your friends, alpha-geeks are better.

Trusty recommendation engines where I place my interests and earn my respect by don't trying to fool me.

Start a bakery

SEO.

They would have us believe that cold calling, spam and banner ads, keep countries running strong by bringing innovative solutions to businesses. As if people who run businesses are not actively searching for ways to save money.