Ask HN: Why do you hate advertising as a business so much?

1. I can name exactly one time that an ad was actually something I might be interested in.

2. Conflict of interest. An advertiser's job is to get me to buy/view/etc something, often with misleading statements. Whether me doing that is actually in my best interest isn't factored into the equation.

3. Annoying. 'Shady' ad practices do and will continue to exist. In any case they take up screen real estate.

4. Advertisers are compiling huge databases that they intend to fill with all sorts of intimate information about me. What I like to read (what I read), who I talk with, what I talk about, etc. These databases are ripe for all sorts of abuse, both outside and within the domain they're being compiled for. (Great example: http://blog.echonest.com/post/27047918145/musical-taste-poli...)

5. Another conflict of interest is between me and the service itself. When the service is mainly powered by ad revenue it means that anything that's good for ads is in the interests of the service, even if it's bad for me. (Eg. Taking up more and more screen real estate, sandwiching ads in between the 'legitimate' content.)

For a start.

1. we do the best we can to target. you get blanketed by irrelevant ads for a myriad of reasons not limited to: -lazy clients who don't understand their userbase -ads for things you might be interested in being choked out by higher paying spots.

2. that's actually not an advertiser's job--although some of those elements may be part of a campaign. we live in an era where clients demand an ROI, they want a conversion stat, and that's what they base an ad buy on--we agree this is detrimental in the industry. we'd much rather present you with a product over a span of time. we'd much rather show a product to likely consumers.

I'd give you a treatise on the industry, but ogilvy did that:

http://www.commissionedwriting.com/CONFESSIONS%20OF%20AN%20A...

3. that's also a client generated evil.

4. we've been making that sort of connection our entire history. content producers check too, they call it 'knowing your audience.' we're actually in the midst of a massive democratization. instead of five or six market research companies (or one TV research company, or one radio company) we're opening up. you can actually opt-out--that's never happened before.

5. so pay for the service.

not enough users are interested in baring the true cost of a service--hence the dependence on ad revenue.

I hate advertisers because:

1) The sense of entitlement they feel - "I should have a right to telephone you at any time, or to mail you junk, or to interrupt your viewing, or to scrape your email address from somewhere and email you garbage, or to use obnoxious loud music or other weird techniques."

2) The destruction of the WWW as a useful source of information, moving instead to really foul pointless content farms or link farms or other weird useless broken sites. Or to sites that are just massive collections of everything, but with no concept of curation. I don't want (eg) every different spectacles case ever made anywhere in the world available from one website - because most of them really are pretty similar. I want a nicely chosen list of twenty different cases.

3) The fear of most sites to let go of advertisers and to just let me pay for the content.

1) those are not advertisers, those are direct mailing etc., outfits. I think they're annoying too. I don't use them. If a client suggests using them, I suggest they find a new agency. I suggest you write a note to the CEO and discontinue your association with the brand. they pay attention to that.

2) might I suggest 'site:.edu'

3) it's not a fear, a critical mass of users won't pay for content.

> 3) it's not a fear, a critical mass of users won't pay for content.

Spot on!!

We didn't have to pay for content before the ads came along. Why should we have to pay for content now?

The content that is advertising supported largely didn't exist before the ads came along, or was provided by entities that were burning through initial capital while seeking a revenue model.

Much of the kind of content that was sustainable before all the ads came along is largely still available without ads after the ads came along to support other kinds of content.

Agree.Tradition is not a business model http://www.internet-manifesto.org/

> Why do you hate advertising as a business so much?

Because advertisers are in the business of lying. The measure of success in advertising is the persuasiveness of one's lies.

> I think mass media and shady ad practices have painted a terrible image of the advertising business model. Advertisements that prey on human weakness, pop ups, auto-play etc... but that doesn't mean that the advertising model is completely broken.

This reminds me of the child molester's defense: "So? Who's perfect?"

> Anyway, I'm THANKFUL to this new age of advertising which allows my business to run and introduces me to apps, services and products I want to use.

It's always nice to see someone ask an question on HN who doesn't already have his mind made up, and who doesn't post simply to express a slanted editorial view of the topic.

Because advertisers are in the business of lying. The measure of success in advertising is the persuasiveness of one's lies.

Those two sentences sum it up for me. I've taught my children to be wary of all ads because advertising is all lies, or at the very best, as close to lying as someone can get and still not tell an untruth.

As far as the cabbie and the ad executive above, how does the ad executive know that the cabbie was either (a) telling the truth or (b) influenced by ads? Perhaps the cabbie tried a lot of toothpastes before settling on Crest.

Secondarily, advertising seems to influence content overly much, no matter how much the content people protest. Stories get spiked because advertisers squawk, reporters get fired or hog-tied because advertisers squawk, products of advertisers get better reviews. And don't tell me that doesn't happen, it does.

again, that's a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of advertising.

http://www.commissionedwriting.com/CONFESSIONS%20OF%20AN%20A...

> again, that's a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of advertising.

Nice article, but it confuses advertising's role with advertising's practice. You know the old saying "the first casualty of battle is the battle plan"? It works the same in advertising -- the most well-intentioned people become mesmerized by the bottom line, and principles go out the window.

yes, the ROI centric approach is problematic--but that's client side.

That's not at all effective - David Ogilvy is an ad agency executive, in the business of lying, or so I (and others) believe.

Even if we believe that advertising is not all about lyig, the PDF is all about how to get and keep clients. It's a pitch to other ad agencies, Ogilvy's competitors. Why shouldn't Ogilvy pitch a little disinformation their way, might keep the wolves from the door a day or two longe, eh wot? The "perfidious Albion" stereotype would seem to apply here. Caveat Emptor would seem to apply in large quantities.

So, today, when I searched for a notary public in my area, expecting to have to trawl through yelp or angie list type crap to just find a local place, and instead I was pleasantly surprised with an ad for a place very close to me that offered everything I needed (I needed more than the notary service), they were lying to me? Odd, it sure seemed legit.

I know what you mean, you are talking about the 'soapX cleans brighter!" which of course is a contentless sentence intended to deceive, and I am with you there. But I think what is awesome about things like Adwords is it gives the small local business the ability to reach the people that are looking for them. Instead of dealing with some horrible chain I ended up at a tiny mom-and-pop shop, found out they had other services I've been looking for unsuccessfully, and now they have a guaranteed customer in me. I think that is great for me, and great for them, because they only paid a tiny amount for my click, and got a customer from it.

It's not perfect; I've just done several searches just to see what will turn up, things like 'kayak rental half moon bay' and such, and am not getting very good ad results. But sometimes they are spot on, more spot on than the google search results.

which is a client-centric failure. convincing a small business (such as a kayak rental outfit) why that they ought to invest in targeted search [which would have a favorable effect] gets a lot harder when they're only pitched for the scammier side of things.

While I agree with the general sentiment posted here, here's an anecdote from a famous publicist. He got in a taxi cab and in the conversation he told the driver what his profession was.

"oh well, that advertising thing never works for me" the driver said.

"what brand of cereal do you buy" - "Kellogs"

"what toothpaste do you use" - "Colgate"

"what's your favorite drink" - "Coca-Cola"

The effectiveness of advertising isn't to make you buy a specific product at a specific time. It's to increase the mind share of a specific product so that when you're in the market for it that's what you'll buy. (Or at the very least you'll see it as a viable option.)

This is of course, unmeasurable.

Isn't it possible that there might be different types of advertising each with its own goals? Billboards are probably about mindshare, but what about when I search Google for a model of TV and there's all these retailers trying to sell me that model?

You're correct. I was actually going to add an edit to this effect but it was too late by the time I thought of doing it.

that's actually still about mindshare though--that's why radio ads still exist. they catch you on the way to the store.

For some of them (say, Best Buy) it definitely would be, but others (say, Bob's Local TV Shop) don't seem to advertise on the scale that would give them any chance of gaining mindshare. I acknowledge that the advertisers are trying to gain mindshare are at a significant advantage when advertising, since they can afford to bid up to the lifetime value of the customer rather than bidding up to the margin of a one-off sale.

When it comes down to it, I don't hate Ad's. But I can openly admit that I despise the Ad Experience. You are basically forced to view/hear the Ad. The consumer has no choice. I find it to be a flawed User Experience. I fault the Advertising Industry for failing to innovate the Advertising Experience. Technology has evolved, providing the potential for an increased User Experience. But the Advertising Industry remains the same, and the User Experience sucks. I find that Today's Advertising Experience essentially utilizes the same approach / method (or what I call the model) that was developed decades ago (born out of Radio, Print, and TV). Take the Banner Ad; Same approach used in print, just modified and served over the Web/Mobile. Consumer attempts to consume content, interrupted by the Ad. Take the Video Ad; Same approach used in Television, just modified and served over the Web/Mobile. Consumer attempts to consume content, interrupted by the Ad. It's the same thing over and over, just repackaged and delivered in a new format. And the underlying User Experience is the same.

I think that the Advertising Industry is ripe for innovation. I'm no fan of Buzzwords, but the new concept of 'Native Advertising' represents (IMO) the biggest innovation in the Advertising Industry in the last 3-4 decades. I think it's time for the Industry to realize that they don't have to interrupt people and force things upon people to successfully Advertise something. I see a correct implementation of Native Advertising creating a much more positive User Experience that actually helps people and gives them the information they want, when they want it. I'm working on a Project in this space, and I'm excited to test and hopefully validate my hypothesis.

I hate ads because they usually involve tracking.

I hate Facebook ads because a lot of them are for games, scams, BS products, or companies/politicians where the ad says "click like if you think/agree..." and the statement has almost nothing to do with that company/politician and are just using it to gain likes for the company/politician's Facebook page.

Before I started blocking ads and JavaScript, I've clicked on exactly four ads:

1 Google text ad in their search results - no sale

2 Facebook ads - I bought the products of both ads

1 ad on a blog (not using a third party ad service) - no sale

Right, it blows my mind to think how many Google Adsense ads I've been exposed to over the life of my Google use. And subsequently to think how many I've clicked on... exactly zero.

Because now content providers know consumers hate ads, so they offer "Ad Free" options (for a price) which is effectively legal extortion.

Ads basically convert 3% of those exposed at the expense of annoying the other 97%, at the very least it's wildly inefficient.

Because the service provider loyalty lies with the advertiser and not me.

Smells like a shill

Oh for gods sake. We must live in alternate universes. I have never clicked an online ad. Ever. I have never met someone who said that they were grateful for ads on a web page, or found them helpful. Ever.

The "advertising business model" is to just push vapid, gratuitous shit. The fact that it is gratuitous shit is what requires it to be advertised.

And for most of us there is the dawning revelation that a life of consumption is...a life of gratuitous shit.

You say that as if no-one clicks on ads. There's vastly overwhelming evidence that ads work, there's no dispute about it whatsoever. You might dislike ads personally but there's billions of statistical data points which demonstrate their validity.

Furthermore not only do other people click on ads, but you've probably done it as well. But in the same way that people who are dieting forget about the condiments they used when they write their food diary, people who are philosophically opposed to ads will forget that they clicked an ad within minutes of having clicked on it.

Go to your web browsing log and search for the ad click trackers for the sites you use (google, facebook, etc.) - you might be surprised at the results.

I disagree that only gratuitous shit needs to be advertised.

I guess you think this because you believe that if a product is good then word of mouth or whatever will mean that it sells without advertising.

This is true to a certain extent if the product is unique in a niche or two or three times better than the alternatives.

In the case where the product is best (so it is not gratuitous shit) but not much better. Then in this case word of mouth is not going to provide sales fast enough to prevent cash flow problems and advertising is necessary.

I click on Facebook ads all the time. So obviously we do live in alternative universes. And I don't mind them because sometimes it turns out to be a good way to find stuff.

I click on facebook ads for fake saliva, fake tears, gout remedies, "vitality supplements" and other old fart ailments. I'm trying to build up a facebook persona of a crotchety, ailing, "got off my lawn!" type of elderly nutjob.