'The Future of Advertising is Fewer, Better Ads' (recode.net) 244
For more than a decade, the online advertising world has been dominated by "display ads," served up to consumers alongside web content, search results or social media posts. But they're not the only game in town, one digital ad exec says. From a report: "I think the advertising world going forward is going to be filled with fewer, better ads," Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer said on the latest episode of Recode Media. "The display advertising market is going to crater. By giving away stuff for free for so long, we've created an ad economy that is bigger than it should be," he added. Schafer says there's a untapped value in "nonstandard" ads, meaning branded content and other forms of advertising on platforms such as Snapchat, Musical.ly, WeHeartIt and Imgur.
When pigs fly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, sure. I'll believe it when I see it.
Re:When pigs fly... (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, AdBlock shows this page only had 32 ads blocked!
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i stoped using adblocker when they didthat proxy's and posibly no scripts(noscipt does other good things too).
there are list to use too and you can use more than one plus any customs easy list's arepretty good. you will need a browser that embeds the adblocker lists or a addon that lets you customize it.
I'm not a grammar or spelling perfectionist. You are welcome to continue to mangle words and sentences in any manner you like. But, you must be prepared to accept that if you can't be bothered to at least make an effort to properly structure a sentence I won't be bothered to grant your comment any credibility.
Re:For the best possible hosts file? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe we just need a mod for spam. Then we can identify the spammers, and they might be filtered out to not be able to post anymore. What do you think about Ads for hosts file engines, and how we go about blocking such ads that are both offtopic and misplaced?
Re:When pigs fly... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, most of us already see good ads. And the only good ad is one that takes 0x0 on the screen and no network requests.
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If there was some easy, anonymous way to support sites as an alternative to advertising I'd be happy to use it. Maybe there could be a browser plugin that tracks usage of sites that accept that form of payment (all data stored locally) and at the end of the month shows some stats and allows me to distribute my budgeted amount fairly with a couple of clicks.
Sadly no-one has come up with a good way to do microtransactions. Crypto currencies are getting there, but the hassle of exchanging with fiat currency is
Re:When pigs fly... (Score:4, Interesting)
If they include a store on the site and sell branded items useful to visitors, lots of people will buy them just to support the site. You don't have to try to replicate or distribute the advertising payment model in order to find alternatives.
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Well, most of us already see good ads. And the only good ad is one that takes 0x0 on the screen and no network requests.
To be pedantic, 127.0.0.1 is still considered a network request.
Re:When pigs fly... (Score:5, Funny)
the only good ad is one that takes 0x0 on the screen and no network requests.
Not everybody agrees with this claim. Imagine doing a web search, but when you visit each of the top several results, you
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Re:When pigs fly... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm fairly sure if you start putting subtle ad elements into the stuff people are watching, people will make a drinking game out of "spot the product placement".
Hell, you'll even get some YouTube channels doing nothing but videos about "5 product placements you surely missed in (show)".
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I'm fairly sure if you start putting subtle ad elements into the stuff people are watching, people will make a drinking game out of "spot the product placement".
Hell, you'll even get some YouTube channels doing nothing but videos about "5 product placements you surely missed in (show)".
Why subtle and not direct? Look how well it worked in Chuck! And he was a better sponsor than Jerred... ;)
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Who or what is Chuck?
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Spy parody about a decade ago. You'd frequently see Sub Way ad placements in the show- things like his boss at the Buy More sitting down to eat a fresh subway sandwich and go on to describe all that went into making it. It had lots of blatant ad placements like that.
Re:When pigs fly... (Score:4)
In a comedy this can actually be used to comedic effect. Why not? Why not even have a character complain about it? "Oh c'mon, you sponsored by Subway or what?" "Yeah (munching) Why you asking?"
If done right, it could even be good for a laugh.
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Hell, you'll even get some YouTube channels doing nothing but videos about "5 product placements you surely missed in (show)".
I had never seen one of these so I found one - 10 product placements in TV/film that you didn't notice.
Almost every example they used was blatantly obvious, although not always overly obnoxious. The first was Lone Star Beer in True Detective. I've never seen that show, but there's a guy with a 6-pack of Lone Star (labels all facing the viewer) and he drinks one. Yeah, not hard to spot, but I'm not sure it was very distracting.
A Marlboro truck in Superman II? That Superman gets slammed into? Kind of ob
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Re:When pigs fly... (Score:4, Insightful)
Often, ignoring is the best case for them. There are several companies that I won't do business with because their ads make me barf.
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The point is that zero ads is the best number of ads! I block ads in my browser. There are just too many, and they are too annoying (and headache inducing!) to not block them. Sites that request to be white-listed in my ad blocker, or that won't let me see content without white-listing or disabling my ad blocker, never get visited again, if I even bother to remember them! I just go elsewhere.
I didn't always block ads online. I have been using computers since the DOS 3.3 days, since before the Internet
Once the majority of sites demand whitelisting (Score:2)
Sites that request to be white-listed in my ad blocker, or that won't let me see content without white-listing or disabling my ad blocker, never get visited again
Let's say you do a web search, and you open several relevant-appearing results in the first page only to discover that most have only a paragraph of text at most followed by "Whitelist us or buy a month's subscription". If this becomes the new normal for more and more web search queries, what do you plan to do? Do you instead buy a month's subscription to read one article?
And I "cut the cord" years ago, dropping ad-infested cable TV for streaming services that not only cost literally 1/10th of what cable TV costs today, but have no ads.
Let me guess: no sports fans in your household, and the cable company serving your city is one of the few that doesn't toss in basic TV a
Re:Once the majority of sites demand whitelisting (Score:4, Informative)
In theory, you could use YaCy [yacy.net] and adjust the algorithm yourself. Self-hosting my search is still on my "to-do" list (not my "done" list), though.
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Better ads.
Ads are saved.
Burma Shave.
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Why do you think people buy stupid shit like 'hatch-a-mole", a single use toy. Sure they get a stuffed animal afterwards, that will never get played with again... Cut the cord and your kids will instantly stop bugging you about buying stupid shit.
When I read your comment I was immediately reminded of the lyrics [azlyrics.com] to Joe Jackson's song "I'm The Man" [youtube.com].
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The only way I knew about Hatchimals is because I collect Weebles. Recently, after I bought some Weebles figures online, the retargeting algorithm thought there was someone in my household who would like Hatchimals as well, and Hatchimals ads stalked me around the web.
Re:When pigs fly... (Score:5, Funny)
Have you ever wished for flying bacon? Of course you have!
Well folks, your dreams have now become a reality. For the low low price of just $19.95 you too can have your very own flying pigs!
Yes, you heard right! Not just one pig, not two, but a whole flock of flying pigs! And if you act now, we will throw in a free dozen eggs. Finally the means to have a quick, and delicious breakfast, brunch, or dinner!
*Wings sold separate, many restrictions apply, not available in any state that does eat meat, considered harmful while flying in the state of California, and subject to the laws of most third word countries.
Re:When pigs fly... (Score:4, Funny)
Great. Now I'm hungry and you sure as hell don't deliver to Europe. Typical. Great promises and then "only valid in US and Canada", right?
Re:When pigs fly... (Score:5, Funny)
Not valid in Canada. These are Great American Pigs, made and sold in the USA.
Make Bacon great again!
If you want your own bacon, you need to stop expecting America to do it for you, and tell your free-loading government to pick up the cost!
Yes, I kid... I had coffee and am feeling like a smart aleck today. ;)
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Try our new decaf, now with 100% more caffeine!
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Decaff and coffee do not belong in the same sentence, unless it's close to bed time!
The following post was sponsored by DeathWish Coffee:
https://www.deathwishcoffee.co... [deathwishcoffee.com]
Native ads (Score:3)
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Perhaps Jony Ive should switch to late night infomercials. Imagine him highlighting how soft, supple, and vibrantly colorful... a Snuggie is!
The Following Slashdot Post... (Score:3)
The Following Slashdot Post is sponsored by Apple. And now a brief special video, narrated by Sir Jony Ive:
(5 minute Apple Quality ad)
We now return to your Post: "Apple still has way more money than it knows what to do with, and that's OK!"
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Just a regular day on /. then.
It is clutter not advertising (Score:5, Interesting)
My adblock current reports having blocked 1.6M ads -- 1.6 million! No one looks at 1.6M ads, they are just clutter.
I loaded my RSS feed yesterday. 1,200 ads blocked from a single use of my RSS reader. No one looks at 1,200 ads from a single use of an RSS feed. These ads are just clutter to be ignored and blocked.
And I truly hate autoroll video ads with sound. Good way to guarantee I will never buy your product.
Re:It is clutter not advertising (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree with you and TFA though that this is a terrible and inefficient way to do it. Unfortunately, the better way to do it - fewer but targeted ads tailored to better suit your interests and needs - is vehemently opposed by the pro-privacy crowd. The more accurately they can target the ads to you, the more people oppose it as a bigger invasion of their privacy. There's a solution in here somewhere, we just have to find it. (Maybe prohibit collecting and selling of profile info, but allow a user to generate/reset his/her own profile. Advertisers are then allowed to read that profile and present an appropriate ad.)
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The ads in newspapers are heavily regulated and can't be animated or noisy.
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Since last time I reset Adblock -- probably four years ago or so.
Re:It is clutter not advertising (Score:4)
Every time I've tried without one I get redirected to some crap site.
Don't use ad-blocker in place of cleaning up the malware on your computer. I've never been redirected.
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Happens on multiple computers, including phones, Macs, PCs, and devices that don't have a proper OS. Mine and other people's devices. And only on slashdot.
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I was going to chime in with exactly this.
You have to be careful these days. There absolutely exists ad network deployed malware which will attempt to log in to your home router using default credentials in order to upload custom firmware or change stuff like DNS settings.
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Without a tracking blocker, I've seen inactive Slashdot tabs occasionally get redirected to a false "Urgent Firefox Update" page even on Xubuntu GNU/Linux. What malware cleaner tool do you recommend for that environment?
Here's the problem to solve... (Score:5, Insightful)
...“There is a lot of audience that’s spread out on places that are not [Facebook and Google], especially younger audiences,” he said. “As audiences get younger, it’s becoming increasingly harder to reach them where everybody else is able to get reached.”...
That's it. That is all the mention of the recipients (aptly a.k.a, "targets") of the advertising. The advertising industry hasn't a clue what the targets of the advertising want with advertising, nor do they seem to care.
.
The advertising industry seems to think that so long as advertising is presented, it is welcomed. That is wrong, just wrong, on so many levels.
Until the advertising industry fixes that major and fundamental problem with their industry, advertising will be unwelcome.
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Please, let them keep thinking that way and spreading misinformation. Until literally every program on TV is crap (instead of 97%) and until there are no longer any real journalism sources at all, advertising pays for a lot of nice things - even if the advertising returns very little to the company paying for it.
FTFY (Score:3)
The advertising industry seems to think that so long as advertising is presented, it is welcomed.
The advertising industry thinks that so long as they get paid, all is well.
Businesses need to wake up, they're being scammed by the sellers of advertising space
Re:Here's the problem to solve... (Score:5, Insightful)
How do they do it? They have competitive pricing, great customer service (return policy, friendly staff, etc...), they follow all distribution rules (they self-check all of their meat before it's put out on shelves), and they take care of their employees. Every Costco I've been to has been stupidly busy during rush hour and all-day Saturday.
Word of mouth and customer good will can go a very long way.
Food ads okay (Score:2)
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Let's face it... the future of noodle ads is dice-cut vegetables! ;)
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There is two ways ads can survive (Score:4, Interesting)
Entertainment and information is what people want. Until now, ads invariably did one thing: Interrupt our access to entertainment and information. And guess what: People don't like that.
Your key to getting your ads not only seen but actually associated with something good and something people want is to tie your ads into entertainment and information. Don't interrupt it, accompany it. Red Bull has really understood that. Know that Red Bull Air Race? Some crazy people flying around at breakneck speed and giving the onlookers the thrill of their life. And everyone knows that it's Red Bull that makes this thrill possible. That's cool! That's what people want! And they associate that sugar water with daredevil action and having a good time.
Have you ever seen a Red Bull ad? I haven't in the past 10 years.
So sponsor entertainment! It needn't be something huge, go and see what YouTubers have tons of followers and ponder how you can become part of their show. Note, this is important: DO NOT get them to endorse your product, YOUR PRODUCT has to become part of their show. It has to be part of the "cool". But, and this is also again important, it must not take over the show. Else that Youtuber is considered a sellout and his followers will leave. Your job is to find out how your product fits into his routine and your product must not break his routine, for that's why people are watching him!
If you prefer something more "serious", try to sponsor something closer to documentaries. That is a mostly uncharted land and I really wonder why. Because people doing serious documentaries are usually considered credible and trustworthy by their viewers, so why not use them for your product? Again, the product has to match the person, the style and the documentary (it's kinda pointless to have an archaeologist drink a cup of coffee from fine porcelain on a digging site, but he could hold a cup whenever he's talking to the camera and take a sip whenever he's in the picture but not talking while showing some ruins or something). And again, subtlety is key. People love finding stuff out themselves. Let them! Maybe even make it some sort of game.
That's where you can thrive. And people will actually love you and your product for it instead of considering you an invasive nuisance. Because yes, you can force us to endure your ads. But you cannot make us watch. And you cannot force us to like something that we consider obnoxious and invasive because it interrupts what we're looking for: Entertainment and Information. Become part of that entertainment and information and we'll actually love you. And your product.
And we buy what we love.
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Red Bull gives you Nintendo Wii-ngs (Score:2)
*wiiings
In fact, that's how I know it's been ten years. The Red Bull ads seem to have stopped once people switched from making toilet jokes about the name of a game console that Nintendo released around then to making "Red Bull gives you Wii-ngs" jokes. Either that or Red Bull's maker thought viewers of the channels that members of my household watch had aged out of Red Bull's demographic.
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Have you ever seen a Red Bull ad?
Yes. They do slightly crude looking animation where some non avian ends up flying.
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And yes, I think product placement and sponsoring is what will survive of advertising. Nobody watches the commercial breaks anymore. Everyone just uses them for a bathroom break or to get more snacks. Sometimes it feels like people's bladders are getting more and more honed to fit into the ad slot.
That's not sustainable. Ads that nobody watches are wasted money. And even the ads that people watch are wasted. Try this experiment: Sit down with a buddy, watch a show. Then, after the show, ask him for the ads
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Just because you can't name an ad doesn't mean it hasn't affected you. Recognition is many times more powerful than recall. Advertisers know that. That Domino's ad that started playing as you got up to take a crap still -reminded- you that Domino's exists and it's an easy option for getting pizza when you want it right away. The next time you think pizza, you may be more likely to think Domino's. The next time you see a Domino's delivery car or pass a Domino's shop, the same neural pathways in your brain are getting reinforced, that were reinforced by each ad you -think- you ignored.
Maybe you're the special snowflake that really doesn't end up buying things due to advertiser influence. Or perhaps you're just a cheap bastard like I am and you stick with cheap crap instead of name brands. But advertising works on most people more than they admit -or- realize.
It's possible that I'll subconsciously remember Domino's when I want pizza. Or, I might associate it with taking a crap! It could go either way.
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Advertising is staying - thank goodness (Score:3)
Ya think so? (Score:2)
Mossberg: Lousy ads are ruining the online experience:
Last Saturday, as the New England Patriots were sloppily beating the Houston Texans 34–16 in a playoff game, I wanted to look at the highlight video of a play using the NFL app on my iPad. To watch that 14-second clip, I had to suffer through a 30-second ad for something so irrelevant to me that I can’t even recall what it was.
...
But the world has changed as journalism and entertainment have been disrupted by technology. Great power has shifted to the advertisers. I learned this almost immediately after I left the Journal in 2013 and co-founded Recode on January 2nd, 2014.
About a week after our launch, I was seated at a dinner next to a major advertising executive. He complimented me on our new site’s quality and on that of a predecessor site we had created and run, AllThingsD.com. I asked him if that meant he’d be placing ads on our fledgling site. He said yes, he’d do that for a little while. And then, after the cookies he placed on Recode helped him to track our desirable audience around the web, his agency would begin removing the ads and placing them on cheaper sites our readers also happened to visit. In other words, our quality journalism was, to him, nothing more than a lead generator for target-rich readers, and would ultimately benefit sites that might care less about quality.
Yes, this advertiser was bold (no, balled) enough to basically tell Mossberg he will screw him over, and he would not be able to do anything against it, because the only way to oppose him was to get no money at all. As long as they have this power, they will give you more and worse ads. Period.
And this is your fault - because you felt entitled to get everything for free.
Best ads: the 3 Bs (Score:3)
Joe Bob Briggs had it locked for movie quality . For quality ads, I say skip the bodies and beasts.
How to have better ads (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Do not serve malware. Ever. No matter what it takes. If you have to have an actual human being (who isn't a moron) personally review every single ad every single time it is served to prevent malware, that is what you have to do. If you cannot achieve this, close your doors and get a real job.
2. Do not serve ads that contain so much a) animation or b) scripting that they slow down the browser to the point it is unusable. Or that it crashes. Ever. If you cannot achieve this, close your doors and get a real job.
3. Do no serve ads that use more bandwidth than the web page they're embedded in by two or three orders of magnitude. Ever. If you cannot achieve this, close your doors and get a real job.
4. Do not serve popup or popunder ads, or ads that load any additional windows of any kind. Ever. If you cannot achieve this, close your doors and get a real job.
5. Do no serve ads that float on top of content, and do no rescale when I zoom in my browser because the web designer doesn't believe in using integer values for font sizes. It makes it literally impossible to read the content. Just do not do this. Ever. If you cannot achieve this, close your doors and get a real job.
6. Do no serve ads that cover more than 25% of the screen that is visible when the page initially loads. Ever. If you cannot achieve this, close your doors and get a real job.
7. Stop blaming your victims when you can't make a living because you refuse to do any, much less all, of these things. It is your fault you can't make your boat payment, because you are stupid, dishonest, and lazy. You deserve to live in a cardboard box, and have no choice but to eat your own home for food.
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You forgot, 8) don't play sound, ever, without the viewer's explicit okay.
Commercials are getting better. (Score:2)
Welcome to the Red Queen's race. (Score:2)
I agree that there's too much advertising, but why would anyone cut down?
Bandwidth is cheep, serving an ad costs almost nothing.
If it's costs $0.0000001, the ad doesn't have to be very effective to be cost effective.
Sure, everyone will complain, and even the advertisers will agree that the world would be better served with fewer adds.
But they'll still want to advertise just a bit more than their competitors...
blah (Score:2)
No matter what, the old saying will still be true: "I know that half of what I spend on advertising is wasted. I just don't know which half."
No. Not at all. (Score:3)
My experience is that the advertising industry has inserted itself into the relationship between the customer and the supplier. Coming from a rural community, this was what I saw. My parents and grandparents were farmers. They didn't buy anything until they *needed* it. I can't emphasize the word *needed* enough. We were not flush with cash so many times we just made do with what we had.
On the rare occasion one of us would actually intend to purchase something, we would go to the local feed store or grocery store and ask questions of the owners or the other customers. Back in those days, that's how it worked. There was such a thing as a community. People who lived and worked close together. They also had the tendency to look out for one another and help one another. So that's where you got your product info. Not from some "jacked up" "insanely enthusiastic" huckster. These neighbors and store owners were the early version of Consumers' Reports." If a product was good, you found out about it. And once you found out about it you... and this is KEY... looked for it because *you were interested* in it. You didn't buy it because some person on amphetamines was pitching it.
Okay, sorry for the rant, but the point is there has to be a desire for a product before the chance of a purchase exists. Just because a manufacturer decides to flood the freakin" society in every conceivable form and fashion with their exaggerated claims and "in your face" effects does not mean their product will sell any more.
So here's my advice to manufacturers. Make a good product and sell it at a reasonable price. You'll probably find that people will buy it and like it and you'll develop a reputation for having a good product at a reasonable price. Then tell the advertising hucksters to go pack sand. If you have a good marketing department you won't need much advertising. And if your product/service is good, you won't need to lie your ass off to sell it.
So AFAIC, you advertising people and just STFU. If and when I want your product and if I find out it's worthwhile, I'll come looking for it.
Not in a million years ... (Score:3)
Advertisers who choose quality over lowest common denominator? Never going to happen. If that industry had any ... and I mean any ... ethics, there would not be late night ads for copper pots on TV. Or anywhere. There would be no way to get fake Viagra; you'd have to get the real thing from a real pharmacy with a real prescription from a real doctor. And the web would not have driven people into ad blockers in the first place.
Let's not forget, Hosts files have been around for ... I don't even remember when I installed one for the first time, but it was around the time you could get broadband instead of dialup for the first time. So let's say 25 years. Probably longer, but I can only talk of my own experience.
Yet, few people actually installed them. It was the banal drivel wallpapering every website on the planet that drove ordinary people to seek out simple browser add-ons that kill ads. And it was the demand for those plugins that got developers to build them in the first place. The industry has no-one to blame but themselves.
And now we get this "it wasn't us, it was the other guy" plea from them to please let them serve us ads. Pretty please. We're sorry.
Well, they're sorry all right, but not in the meaning they intended.
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because almost everything is advertised now
When I am in the middle of the Sahara desert and I see a bill board advert for winter parkas... then I will agree with you.
Granted, you did say *almost* everything, but I digress..
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because almost everything is advertised now
When I am in the middle of the Sahara desert and I see a bill board advert for winter parkas... then I will agree with you.
Granted, you did say *almost* everything, but I digress..
https://www.rddusa.com/shop/u-... [rddusa.com]
Hehe
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Well I'll be, I guess even Hell gets cold at night! ;)
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If it has to be advertised I don't need it.
So you need nothing, because almost everything is advertised now... Not that people see it at all...
Just because it is advertised doesn't mean it has to be advertised.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Advertising isn't about what you need. It's about what you can be persuaded to buy. "Need" doesn't factor in.
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Advertising can make the difference where I buy the things I do need.
Me too, but not always a positive difference. I've also decided against places due to bad ads.
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Location and price are what help determine my decision.
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How many times have we suddenly decided we *Need* that gadget only after we saw the commercial for it? We did not realize how big the black hole was in our souls until we discovered the product that promises to fill it.
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I won't be so naive as to claim that advertising has no effect on me (though when I can detect it, it has a strongly negative effect)...
But I can honestly say the situation you describe hasn't happened since I was still a dumb 12YO watching Saturday morning cartoons and desperately wanting some crappy cereal (often only for the toy inside).
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For me, I am more inclined to be affected by an advertisement if I am already wanting that item in broad terms (ie. I'm hungry and see an ad for a local pizza place). If it's totally out of the blue I'm most likely going to ignore it, unless it catches my attention on some other level; it's funny, creative, etc.
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
When they measure the responses, even though people respond differently after seeing the ad those people don't believe it is because of the ad. They will almost always be able to identify better-sounding reasons. That's actually the whole point, and why the advertising is typically so stupid. If it was a logical response they were targeting the ads would look very different.
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More specifically, it's about what you can be persuaded that you need.
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This is why "well-known" brands get to price gouge. People assume there's nothing cheaper (or better for the same price) and just follow the same habits. Competition is good, overall. And competition requires some amount of advertising.
Look at how many people using iPhones on AT&T. AT&T is the default choice for those over a certain age, but it's by far the most expensive mainstream carrier.
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Actually I was (mostly) kidding. But I can justify my position, even though --again I was just joking. It's usually the "well known" brands advertising. I don't think I have seen an ad from my favorite soda brand since maybe the 90s. Now that I think of it, most of the products I have purchased I haven't done it by advertising even in the subtle sense. I usually read the amazon reviews online or ask people who may be knowledgeable. It takes discipline but one can immunize oneself from advertising. I like wa
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I was more talking about brands you find in a physical store and groceries - so it's a poor example for that, but still common. Product shelf placement and package design is all advertising. Special sale pricing too.
like watching them cause they are entertaining in how they try to convince people
Ah, yes...that wonderful trope of showing someone utterly failing to do something simple, usually in black and white footage.
Enjoy this gem I just found: Infomercial Struggles Compilation [youtu.be]
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
Know any computer manufacturers that use that technique? (Apple)
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is no longer a BMW... but rather a 3 year Ford design marketed as "new" with a different color paint job, and a custom multi touch shiftier.
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I'm looking for an RC Cola ad... once I see one, I will buy an entire shipping crate of the stuff....
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I love RC Cola, but honestly forget it exists and end up buying Pepsi when I want a regular cola. It also usually gets the bottom shelf in the grocery store.
Most people younger than me have probably never tried it.
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I don't drink much soda, so when I do, I want it to be a favorite. RC cola, is nice, but I prefer the more complex flavors of Coke or Dr. Pepper.
*The preceding post was sponsored by the Coca Cola Corporation, in partnership with SlashdotMedia.
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We are creatures of habit, sticking to what we know we like. It's like going to your favorite restaurant and ordering your favorite meal; you see other menu items, but don't know if you will like them as much as the meal you have already tried and enjoy.
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While basic essentials like food, water, etc. don't need to be advertised, other things do. How did I find out about the C-64? A commercial. Was it a need? At the time we didn't think so; but looking back, it was. I don't know where I'd be if we didn't have one. Dead? No; but with much fewer interesting things in life. Now in the modern era, kids are playing with things like Rasberry Pi boards and stuff. How do they find out about it? Sites like this? And when some start-up pitches a product like
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While basic essentials like food, water, etc. don't need to be advertised
You'd be surprised. Electric utilities run public safety ads, and natural gas companies run ads about how much quicker a gas range boils water than an electric one.
Re:We don't need ads (Score:5, Interesting)
The McRib is a classic example of something that is really popular, but limited term item on the menu. It is that way on purpose, because scarcity creates a subconscious desire. I know people who do not eat at McD's at all, except when McRib is out. Then they eat there all the time, not just for McRib. It is really weird when you think about it.
Re:We don't need ads (Score:4, Insightful)
Disney has used a similar technique for different reasons through the years when it comes to releasing their films on home-media formats. They do large "limited" batch runs of their movies and market "for a limited time only!" to try to drive additional sales. In-fact if you look at their history, you'll find that even if a particular title is pressed for only a finite amount of time, they stop production when demand drops, not based on some pre-chosen timetable, and most of their popular titles have been released on every popular consumer format. You'll find VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray, and for some titles you'll even find Betamax, CED, and HD-DVD before those formats went stale. In reality they produce a title until the market won't bear it any longer then they stop, so that those who didn't get on the bandwagon with a particular format and lament that will do so next time around, and everyone else will re-buy what they already have in the new format as well.
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most of their popular titles have been released on every popular consumer format.
That's a big "most". Find me a lawfully made copy of Song of the South in any home video format that was ever popular in the North American market.
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Disney put this to perfection. Most classic Disney movies can't be bought just when you want them, oh no, they're only for sale during a very specific time and if you don't get it now, you will probably have to wait a looooooooong time, so get it now, even if you don't really want it but you might in a year and you can't buy it then...
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The McRib is available when the price of pork is low. You aren't getting premium meat in there and they aren't willing to raise the price. The scarcity angle is just a positive side-effect.
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I don't remember the last time I was in a McD's, but I would in a heartbeat if they brought back those mini-pizza's.
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I went once, 5 years ago. (I know it was 5 years because I specifically remember the route I was on for my work at the time, and I only worked there one year- McD was only place I passed). It was awful and haven't eaten there again since.
Before that time it had been at least a decade- probably 2.
So one McDonalds outing in 25 years- and I consider that too frequent.