Comment by GeneralTspoon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GeneralTspoon | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> But what is being passed today as advertising is nothing like that

Here's an example of one such piece: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XkaWyrm8EQg/maxresdefault.jpg

It's from the Superbowl ad for the mobile game 'Game of War: Fire Age'. It has sweet f-all to do with the game. It's literally just boobs + live-action battle scenes (neither of which the game has). Just another sad attempt to appeal to such basic caveman instincts...

'Game? Boobs? Me...game...boobs...like'

I'm tired of junk like that, so at the moment I'm attempting to build an advertising platform for a project of mine to test the theory that advertising doesn't have to be trash (as mentioned above).

The platform doesn't allow any sort of custom images/text by the advertiser.[1]

The idea is that users decide if they're interested or not based on objective information (the same information as presented by organic listings).

For anyone curious, it looks like this in practice: http://i.imgur.com/iI4oon8.png

All the data for the campaigns is totally open for anyone to view & analyze [2] (although there isn't much data yet, as I'm only piloting the system now)

Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't have enough boobs... but an interesting experiment to try anyway I think.

[1] http://getcurated.co/advertising

[2] http://getcurated.co/advertising/campaigns

That Game of War ad is obviously unrelated to the game and appeals to "baser" instincts, but does it really deserve a label as harsh as "psychological blackmail"?

You're right, perhaps that's not precisely the correct term here.... "Psychological trickery" or just straight up lies maybe. As it's essentially trying to paint a picture of the game in your mind that's just not true.

I would hold them at exactly the same level of sleaziness though.

The purpose of the image is to guide your gaze to the ad. And nothing does it better than a scantly clad beautiful women. It is like the oldest trick of the trade.

Ever wonder why all those billboards feature beautiful women when the product has nothing to do with women? If you try, you can recognize how your gaze is captured by the image of the women (thanks to a strong evolutionary instinct built over million of years to quickly identify potential mates), and how your gaze naturally follows to the name of the brand/caption on the board...If it was only the brand name/caption, then you would never have even looked at it.

That doesn't really morally justify the lies though...

"Hey, FREE SEX!! Nah, just kidding, but buy our stuff".

I am in no way justifying it. Oh. In fact, I hate it to the very last shred. I hate it so much that if I somehow end up looking at such a billboard, I avert my eyes before my gaze end up where they want it to end up which is their (brand name/ caption). So fuck you ad!

Ha, awesome! Personally, if I happen to see the name of the brand I'll avoid buying their products (if reasonably possible).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com