I hate ads, but this is not a winning argument. Instead of winning people over to the sympathetic cause (nobody really LIKES ads besides google and meta employees) you alienate people
Google and Facebook, in the early days, thought they could use copious amounts of data to tailor the ads to the user such that they would only be subjected to those which are likeable, but then the audience got skittish about having that much information collected on them. And so we now just get whatever random ad happens to be in the queue – which, indeed, is statistically unlikely to be in line with what you actually need, and therefore unlikable.
I don't, honestly. If I've decided I want something, I'll seek it out. If I've identified an area where I feel like my life is lacking, I might look for a product to help fix that. If I don't even know about something that I might want, I'm fine not having it.
The problem is that I don't really trust anyone else to determine what kind of ad passes the test of "will improve people's lives". There's really no objective way to approve or reject an ad based on this kind of criterion.
I'd rather we just ban all forms of advertising.
> Google and Facebook, in the early days, thought they could use copious amounts of data to tailor the ads to the user such that they would only be subjected to those which are likeable
No, they wanted to give people ads they thought would be effective. Google's plan was to make ads unobtrusive, mostly text-only, and thought that they would be likeable enough to be effective. But that's the key: they didn't do this because they were being nice and wanted to make the web a better place. They did it because they thought the ads would actually work better.
you dont know what you don't know. I wouldn't have even been aware of tech if I didn't randomly bumble into a robotics club in high school. Would I have been fine likely making much less in a field I'm less paasoinate about? Maybe, but that seems to be a big sacrifice just so your life is "ad-free" (an odd ideal, if possible at all).
if you hadn’t joined the robotics club, chances are very high you would tripped over robotics on your way off of the stage when graduating. it’s that prevalent these days. if not then you would’ve seen one of the many youtube videos convincing you to join some company. had you seen an ad for robot building school, most would consider it a scam and move on.
I'll grant you that understandings can be faulty. One may learn that there was no benefit. But that's outside of the ad itself. Invalidating your hypotheseses is an important part of the scientific method.
The advertisements create the misunderstanding. "Lucky Charms are part of a complete breakfast" etc. No normal person under normal circumstances would think that marshmallows or cookies are part of a healthy meal if you asked them directly to think about it.
Who is buying Lucky Charms because they find them disgusting, but somehow see them as being important? Let's be real: People only (continue to, at least – they may buy once just to try) buy Lucky Charms if they like consuming them.
Have... you met a teenager?
I'm failing to see the point of this example, as I don't think I've never met a single person who found their first cigarette enjoyable. Is your experience that people buy their first and second pack out of enjoyment of the taste?
I don't really see the point of the example either, frankly, but it is what we were given. I expect the contextual parent was just desperately trying to come up with something in the absence of having something meaningful to say.
No one in their right mind would ever give their kids Oreos for breakfast, but somehow advertisements make people feel comfortable giving them Oero O's. Any person of sound mind would say that giving that to your kids as a meal is neglect, but people do it, and it's "normal". This is the harm that marketing is capable of.
Cookies are, in fact, not a part of a complete breakfast. Evidently, you can convince people that they are by just repeating the message thousands of times to them. I don't see how the people who are involved in making those ads (or the products) can live with themselves. Convincing people to e.g. set their kids up for a life of obesity and early T2 diabetes from poor dietary habits is pure evil, and that's just one example of horrible (yet completely mundane for them) things marketers do.
Just imagine being a person who wakes up in the morning and thinks about how to best convince children to try ingesting poison[0]:
> Juul Labs, the vaping company that has long insisted it never marketed its products to teenagers, purchased ad space in its early days on numerous youth-focused websites, including those of Nickelodeon, the Cartoon Network, Seventeen magazine and educational sites for middle school and high school students, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Massachusetts attorney general.
Everyone involved in something like that should be put in prison.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/juul-vaping-lawsui...
Assuming you are going to feed your children Oreos at some point, why not for breakfast?
> Cookies are, in fact, not a part of a complete breakfast.
They could be. If you are going to eat them anyway, why not at breakfast?
> Evidently, you can convince people that they are by just repeating the message thousands of times to them.
Evidently not. Remember, a "complete breakfast" refers to a specific culinary dish that consists of items like bacon, sausages, eggs, baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc.
Who eats a bowl of cookies in addition to all that? I've certainly never met such a person. I've known people who eat bowls of cookies for breakfast, indeed, but when they do that's approximately the only thing they eat, which violates what is told in the advertisement. The advertisement you point to is abundantly clear that these cookies are only to be eaten with all those other foods.
Evidently people don't pay attention to what is said and will go off and do their own thing.
It's almost like that was the intention. It's weird how the ad doesn't prominently show the eggs, beans, etc. and talk about how great they are, and instead focuses on how you can totally eat cookies for breakfast!
Here's an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnvHUXssIAo
"Not Candy! Resees Puffs cereal!"
It is candy. Like 1/3 of the mass is added sugar, and the other 2/3 is more carbs. And what's the complete breakfast that goes with it? Two slices of white-bread toast, a glass of milk, and a glass of juice. Even the "complete" breakfast is garbage. The bowl almost certainly has more than the 1 cup serving as well.
The purpose of this commercial is not to inform you about how to use their product as part of a healthy diet (because it isn't a part of a healthy diet). It is to turn your brain off and get you to buy something that you intuitively know is not appropriate. People received the intended message.
Even if they did show their product as a small side (rather than a centerpiece) of an otherwise healthy breakfast, it's still ridiculous to suggest that you should be giving your kids candy with any regularity.
My oldest kid is 3, and I don't think she has had an Oreo. Will she before she's 18? Probably. Has she had some other treats? Sure. But it's not at all a regular thing. It's certainly not part of a daily diet.
Assuming we watched the same video, the purpose is to inform the offer of a solution to a problem: The problem of parents needing to rush off to work and the kids off to school, without time to prepare a proper healthy breakfast, with the kids crying "I'm hungry" yet turning their nose up at anything that might be even reasonably healthy.
Hell ya I've given my children candy for breakfast on occasion. We seem to both accept that the occasional treat is not the end of the world. Why not at breakfast? I certainly wouldn't want to make it a habit, but I can also say that from a point of relative privilege in time and resources to cater to other choices. While I think we can agree it is not ideal to turn it into a habit, I can empathize with the parent who is trying to cope with a hard situation by resorting to something that solves the immediate problem.
> ...as part of a healthy diet
While this ends up being true, does this caveat not imply that health is the only problem people face? Clearly that is not true.
> It is to turn your brain off and get you to buy something that you intuitively know is not appropriate.
Like you imply, I expect most parents have a pang of guilt when buying breakfast candy for their children, but I expect they also don't know what is a better alternative that fits within their life constraints. If you could market to them something that is at least as equally palatable to the picky child, at least as easy to prepare, and actually healthy, I bet you could destroy the cereal market overnight. But without consumers becoming aware of that better solution...
We don't eat candy for breakfast because candy is not food. Thus the issue of fighting to enforce good habits never arises. Without advertisements undermining us, the idea simply does not exist. If it ever occurred to her, it's easy to say "no, candy is not food" and we don't have a TV telling her otherwise.
Yeah, so did my kids at that age. In fact, if given the choice, they would choose the healthy food over the candy. Get back to us in a few years.
On that note, there is nothing to me that suggests the ad in question is even trying to convince you that your unruly 3 year old that you are rushing to get off to school is a problem. It clearly portrays older children. You appear to be the exact embodiment of the idea that ads are not likeable when they are not applicable.
What does seem applicable to your preferences is healthy food. Would you be this miffed if you were shown an ad in a similar vein about a new food product that tastes great and has proven to be healthy? Or would you be glad to learn about it?
> She doesn't know things like cereal exist.
Without some kind of advertising, she also wouldn't know anything exists – even healthy food. Seems you're trying to go down the same road as the parallel thread of "advertising is only bad if the product is bad".
Which is hard to deny on some kind of superficial level, sure, but seems to conflate a number of ideas that I'm not sure should be conflated.
> Without some kind of advertising, she also wouldn't know anything exists – even healthy food.
Do you actually believe that before the 1900s and the invention of advertising, nobody knew about food?
I don't see how you can make such a big claim without resorting to "well, daddy telling you to eat cucumber is a form of advertising".
Is there something we are supposed to convince you of?
> Do you actually believe that before the 1900s and the invention of advertising, nobody knew about food?
1900s? Even what is considered "modern" advertising dates back to the 17th century – i.e. the 1600s.
> I don't see how you can make such a big claim without resorting to "well, daddy telling you to eat cucumber is a form of advertising".
Okay, but unless "daddy" hales from Mesopotamia, then he didn't really stumble upon one in nature by happenstance. The rest of world only came to learn of the existence of cucumbers through advertising.
Just a definition would be nice. Thanks.
If you want a definition, pick a definition – come up with something on the spot, even. It makes no difference to me.
I don't see why you wouldn't tie those ideas. Sure, ads that remind you to do some push-ups and tell kids how cool it is to be strong would be great, but they don't exist. Talking about decent adverts might as well be talking about how "true" communism hasn't been tried. In the real world, the product generally is somewhere between unnecessary and outright bad. It's obtuse to ignore that.
One of us is talking about hypothetical ads for fantasy products. The other is talking about actual ads.
> Without some kind of advertising, she also wouldn't know anything exists – even healthy food.
Our family didn't see, hear, or read an advertising until myself and siblings were well into our teens .. we were all too far out from cities to get TV, the national broadcasting radio didn't carry ads, etc.
We all knew what healthy food was, the food we grew, raise, and caught. The bulk goods that were ordered.
> Sure, ads that remind you to do some push-ups would be great, but they don't exist.
Sure they do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNjEge3Awl8 the first "ad" campaign series I saw. As a teenager.
Life without advertising is possible, even today - I principally use the internet and haven't seen an add their for decades thanks to sponser blocks and ad blocking.
Wait. Ordered as in you shouted out into the wilderness: "Oh great vast expanse, give me rice!"
Or ordered as in, like, you contacted a business that supplies bulk goods and requested that they fulfill an order? I'm assuming this one, but how did you magically find out about this business without some kind of advertising letting its existence be known?
Hell, even if we believe the former, how did you come to learn that rice (or whatever good it is that you ordered) exists? You (or your parents, or their parents, whatever) were somehow magically born with that knowledge?
Advertising does not necessarily imply paid, but let's go down that road. How do you, and therefore your child, know how to obtain the food that your children eat?
In my case, I go to the grocery store. But I only know that there that grocery store to go to because they spend quite a lot of money to let it be known that they exist. And when in the grocery story, they spent quite a lot on marketing to let it be known what I can buy, healthy or otherwise.
It is advertising all the way down.
> Talking about decent adverts might as well be talking about how "true" communism hasn't been tried.
Well, of course it hasn't been tried. Communism is a work that imagines what life could be like if we achieve post-scarcity. Star-Trek is another adaptation of the same idea. Outside of science fiction, trying either at this juncture is fundamentally impossible. We have not yet succeeded in fulfilling the necessary preconditions that would allow trying.
Yes, indeed, there is hopeful progress towards that goal. We have, according to the UN, achieved post-scarcity in the area of food. It is quite possible that we will get all the way there some day. But not yet. Its time has not yet come.
So what purpose would a "Star-Trek hasn't been tried!" ad actually serve? Just to state the obvious? Perhaps you see it as some kind of gorilla marketing tactic to convince people to watch Star-Trek, or to what you really said, read about the imagined world of communism, because you find it to be entertaining and think others will too?
> One of us is talking about hypothetical ads for fantasy products. The other is talking about actual ads.
And then there is what the rest of us are talking about. What is not clear is who the second player is. Do you have a split personality, by chance?
You know, there is this thing called a “map” that you can use to find places without having them advertize themselves to you. And of course grocery stores show you the food they sell, how else would they sell it?
A blank map will reveal business destinations? Methinks you've not thought this through.
> And of course grocery stores show you the food they sell, how else would they sell it?
It is not unheard of to see counter service, with the food hidden away in the back. Presenting the food can be deferred until after the sale is made. Ordering online for pickup (or perhaps delivery, although that is less common around here) has also become quite popular, which definitely means you aren't seeing the food beforehand. Most grocery stores try to go for the wholesale experience nowadays because it is a great way to advertise the products, sure, but it is not a strict requirement. Methinks you've not thought this through.
it's grains either way, even if some grains have sugar on them (we have a lot of stuff with too much sugar/salt for taste or preservative purposes. Fresh food every day is sadly a luxury). This seems overly dramatic to the point of dismissing your whole point. Giving "bad breakfast cereal" is neglect? Really?
You're free to only give your kid soylent 3 times a day if you want to minmax health, but you seem to be missing a core point that humans also desire pleasurable senses.
On the contrary, it's the hyper targetting of ads, nested in content algorithmically maximixed for engagement, that I object to.
I've worked in the ad industry, so I've certainly heard and appreciate the whole "we're just educating consumers about products they might be interested in" angle. That's fine, academically speaking, if that's all advertising was. However, advertising more often than not attempts to pray on people's emotions to generate demand for a product. And when we know exactly who someone is, it's SO much easier to do that.
As a perfect example, I woke up last Saturday, started scrolling IG, and saw an ad with a photo of a miserable looking middle aged man lying in bed, asking "Are you tired of feeling like a horrible father because of your drinking problems? Try Reframe!" (No idea what the exact phrasing was, but close enough to that.)
Yes, I'd in fact had drinks with friends the night before. And yes, I'm a middle aged dad. I thought the targetting was pretty hilarious, so I laughed and shared it with my wife and friends. But also, Reframe is praying on my feelings of guilt and shame in an attempt to sell me their shitty app.
I can laugh it off, but I'm not so sure your typical teenager could.
You're not going to feel guilt or shame unless you already are under the understanding that you're not, in this case, being then parent you wish to become. Anyone who takes an interest in this ad will do so only because they actually want to make their life better by becoming a better parent and drinking less, and are seeking solutions to see that through.
It seems the only problem here is that the app is shitty.
I think that's where the algorithm matters more than the ad. e.g. if it was some random traveling saelesman going door to door and they researched this neighborhood having 30 year old dads, it wouldn't feel that bad to happen upon a convinient solution.
When you know some company sold your data (with dubious consent) to a bidder who can then pay another company who has your data to say "yeah, give this ad to 30 year old dads", then start starts to feel overly invasive. Not because the product is bad per se, but because two different conglomerations exploited your data.
and for the absurd, "optimal" solution: if this company had government surveillance about your private life up to your recent daily activity, and used that to directly text your spouse or older kid about how your spouse/dad needs this to get over his drinking problem, that'd go way over the line.
However, I think you may be missing the point that the advertisement is specifically meant to elicit, or create, those feelings of guilt or shame. Maybe I feel just fine about the amount I drink, but the wording of the ads subtely implied I should feel guilty about my drinking. If the question was "Do you feel like you could use help with your drinking? Then try Reframe.", then I'd agree with your point more.
But maybe a bad example, because in that case perhaps the end result of the targetted ad could in fact be a better outcome for everyone, as you point out. To pick a bit of a hyperbolic example, what if instead the ad had instead said "Tired of being the the ugliest girl in your class? Try BetterMakeup!" (with all the appropriate imagery the targetting provides). Is advertisement like that truly good for anyone but the seller?
As a bit of a side note, everyone knows ads are targetted now, so there's an implicit assumption on the viewers part that the seller must know something about them. And now advertisers are using that to their advantage.
I think the larger point though is that many of us simply do not think its ethical or healthy to give companies the tools to manipulate our emotions and tap into our insecurities in the pursuit of profit. The seller doesn't care about the buyer, they only care about convincing the buyer to buy their product, even if that means making them feel shitty about themselves.
I'm not sure that was missed, but, as before, you cannot elicit or create feelings where there isn't already an understanding of what the feelings reflect. The particular ad no doubt does elicit feelings in those who already see themselves as not being the parent they want to be. It's not going to elicit any particular feelings in someone who is childless, though. They lack the necessary understanding.
And if you do have concern about the way you are parenting, wouldn't you want to improve upon that?
> what if instead the ad had instead said "Tired of being the the ugliest girl in your class? Try BetterMakeup!" (with all the appropriate imagery the targetting provides). Is advertisement like that truly good for anyone but the seller?
Sure, it is also good for the person who has an understanding that they are ugly and no longer want to be, again, assuming the product works. We do again have the potential problem of where the product might not work as expected. Indeed, that can be a problem, but I'm not sure that's a problem with advertising in and of itself. We should be careful to not conflate different ideas.
On the assumption that "BetterMakeup" actually makes a person more beautiful, someone wants to become more beautiful, and the ad gave awareness to the person that there is a solution to their apparent problem, is that not a win for the consumer?
> I think the larger point though is that many of us simply do not think its ethical or healthy to give companies the tools to manipulate our emotions and tap into our insecurities in the pursuit of profit.
If all products magically solved the problems they purport to solve, would you still have the same concern? As before, trying to convince a childless person that they are a bad parent isn't going to work. This only works when you are presenting a solution to someone who already understands that they have a problem.
If the product is shitty, thereby not solving the problem, then I can definitely understand your overall concern. Although I am not sure you have made clear why advertising is to blame for shitty products. If we are imagining ways to change the world, why place product evaluation in the advertising band at all? Perhaps these shitty products don't need to be allowed on the market in the first place?
> Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that this Reframe is some miracle app that will truly do what you think it claims to.
Reading this discussion, I remain unconvinced. Unless I lost the plot somewhere along the way (admittedly, that's a possibility), it sounds like the context is that of someone advertising a product in a probably dishonest way and it's justified because people want the thing that's being advertised, even though it's not necessarily the thing that's being sold.
> Although I am not sure you have made clear why advertising is to blame for shitty products.
Put another way: what if the product in question was literally snake oil? Is that still justifiable as marketing because they're making a promise about it which someone wants to hear? Maybe it's more than just a shitty product.
Was there something we were supposed to convince you of?
> what if the product in question was literally snake oil? Is that still justifiable as marketing because they're making a promise about it which someone wants to hear?
The discussion is about advertising preying on insecurities, not marketing in general. If we assume snake oil were to be advertised, is there some reason to prefer: "Snake Oil: The miracle cure-all!" over "Your bad breath is scaring off the girl of your dreams. Cure it with Snake Oil!"?
If yes, why is the latter less preferable? Is it because it calls attention to a real problem someone might want to solve? Does that continue to hold if we assume snake oil truly is a miracle cure-all that eliminates bad breath?
(I appreciate your questions. I had to think about that one.)
Yes, but that is true in both cases. A miracle cure-all, if there were such a thing, would, indeed, solve your halitosis and girl troubles.
If I am to infer something here, it is that you didn't realize what a "cure-all" can do. It took more precise language to get you thinking about specific problems and how to solve them.
So, let's assume for a minute that snake oil is well and truly a magical cure-all. It seems that by the first ad you wouldn't recognize that fact and would end up not being able to benefit from is miracle properties. Perhaps the second ad would actually be preferable?
I think I can see where you're coming from with this but it's still not how I read it. The second advertisement is telling me that the product will cure my bad breath and therefore my girl problems but my girl problems are not necessarily related to my bad breath. It's the same as the drinking father example; a person's parenting can be good or bad irrespective of their drinking habits. (Maybe it fixes my girl problems independently from curing my bad breath but the advertisement seems to be telling me that it will solve my girl problems by means of curing my bad breath. Same as the given drinking father real-world example.)
Can you think of a non-cure-all example for which this argument holds?
Right. Which also demonstrates why the latter type of ad tends to be much more effective, even though both technically say the same thing.
So, it seems to me that we have two different discussions trying to compete here:
- The acceptability of false advertising.
- The acceptability of advertising that attempts to evoke emotions.
While you are not wrong in noticing that these examples also exhibit false advertising, that is staring to move away from the original discussion, which was about preying on insecurities.
> Can you think of a non-cure-all example for which this argument holds?
How about we turn to the ad that shows up on just about every HN page? It will be well-familiar to everyone here. Here are two variants on one of those ads (with a little paraphrasing on my part):
- "Rust: It will protect your memory!"
- "Still programming in C like it is 1972? The hackers are going to get you. Secure your programs with Rust!"
My understanding from earlier in the thread is that only the first example should be allowed according to the beliefs of those who participated. But, I must say, I'm far more compelled by the latter. It addresses problems I understand deep down when programming in C and then offers a solution. The "It will protect your memory" doesn't tell me much. Why do I need my memory protected? Next.
Assuming only the latter ad catches my attention, which I think is a decent assumption based on what we've seen in this very thread and around ad response behaviour in general, is it possible that the consumer actually benefits from the latter?
The consumer may still ultimately benefit from this advertisement which evokes emotions in such a personal way, especially if we assume the efficacy of the product to be as advertised. The advertisement might also cause a mentally unhealthy individual to become worse as such. The negativity of the emotions might push someone into a worse spot or into learning self-harming or abusive behaviors.
As much as advertisers A/B test their advertisements, I don’t get the feeling they measure the effect they have on national suicide rates. Do you think they’d publish those numbers if they had them?
Admittedly, I dragged this away from OP’s point a bit but I think I brought it back. One person might laugh it off while another abuses their family. It’s really hard to say that the advertisement is not evil, even if it can be demonstrated to be a net good for some.
That there is a division between personal emotions and professional emotions is a new idea to me. What is the difference?
> It’s really hard to say that the advertisement is not evil, even if it can be demonstrated to be a net good for some.
If we assume that advertisements can be evil, how are we certain the type that doesn't go after insecurities aren't the evil ones? Like you say, there doesn't seem to be much data published to back up which and which ads aren't evil.
The emotions are all personal but some topics evoke emotions of lesser or greater intensity than others; the topic of one’s parenting will likely be more emotionally intense than the topic of their tech stack at work. Most people in relevant situations will be far more invested in the former than the latter.
> If we assume that advertisements can be evil, how are we certain the type that doesn't go after insecurities aren't the evil ones? Like you say, there doesn't seem to be much data published to back up which and which ads aren't evil.
It’s a personal belief that this behavior is evil; indeed, that seems a necessary component of calling anything evil. I also wouldn’t distinguish between advertisements which play on emotions and those which don’t -- they all play on emotions. The important distinction for me is in the specific topic being exploited. (There was also the distraction I brought up of false advertising but I think that’s more uncontroversially “evil”.)
Where does "Are you tired of feeling like a horrible father because you are spending more time tracking down error cases you forgot to handle than with your children? Try Rust!" fall?
> I also wouldn’t distinguish between advertisements which play on emotions and those which don’t -- they all play on emotions.
You kind of have to distinguish between them in order to meaningfully participate in this discussion. That there is no difference follows my point made initially, so I can certainly appreciate your position in a vacuum, but we moved long past that to explore the idea that there is a difference. If you cannot speak to a difference then there is only nonsense.
Perhaps I misunderstand?