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The problem with advertising is that it works. As long as that is true, no good outcomes. "It's the credulity, stupid."
Do we really know advertising works, or is that investigated folk knowledge?
Advertising can work. Reputable advertising firms track the numbers. You've always got correlation-causation problems, but there's too much data for it to be a coincidence.
There are two problems:
1. Even for reputable firms, they don't know beforehand what works. As the famous quote goes, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” That was over a century ago, but it's still true.
2. There are a lot of disreputable advertisers. So many that you can easily miss that any sincere advertising exists. And even the reputable advertisers are forced to use tactics that they wouldn't use in an environment with less noise.
Banning all advertising is a baby/bathwater situation. I promise you that there is a baby in there, and you'd notice if we threw out that ocean-sized bathtub. And then you'd want to build up a new advertising mode... and you'd find it a challenge to do in a way that is simultaneously effective and fair.
So if I am a plumber what could I do, then? Stay home and wait for chance wrong number calls? Would going door to door to adverti... hmm to have a chat still be allowed?
I know people at a nearby Church also work hard to organise classical music concerts. They'll be disappointed when no-one show up because no-one knew about them.
Advertising is extremely important to a healthy, open society.
Advertising is bloodless murder.
Advertising in the sense of making an entry in a service registry like the Yellow Pages used to be where the customer can look you up and find you, yes.
Forcing news of your existence on people who didn't ask though? Nah. That's just parasitism.
That works if you're advertising something people knew they wanted beforehand. It doesn't work if you're offering something novel.
If they're looking up plumbers in the yellow pages, you won't encounter the existence of Drano.
We have a solution for things like that. It's called search engines and indexes if you don't poison the fuck out of it for economic and political gain. Outlaw or regulare SEO and we can go back to a marvelous time when everyone could actually find things without having shit shoved into their face every second of every day.
Optimize pulls. Not pushes. Pushes are acts of force. Pulls are acts of grace. If you can't understand this, I'd say you're stuck in the Sinclairism of being impossible to get to understand due to your life or ambitions in some way being dependent on not understanding.
Research works. Has worked. Will continue to work. If we can put a check on rampant greed and coamp down on the tragedy of the commons that is the pollution of the modern web.
So convincing someone to buy something they don’t want or need. Perhaps you’ve stumbled upon the root problem of our overconsumption.
I’m in