
Things Real People Don't Say About Advertising - Byliner
http://tpdsaa.tumblr.com/
======
alexophile
You could just as easily make a blog "Things Real People Don't Say About Your
App"

"I like the functionality, but it doesn't follow best practices."

or "Things Real People Don't Say About Science"

"These findings are compelling, but I'd like to see some corroborating studies
in peer reviewed journals".

Any consumer facing industry is going to have a world of jargon that is
inaccessible or ridiculous to the layperson. And similarly, these industries
can support those who want to participate but don't have anything to add.

I don't see this as a jab at advertsising (although, it very well may have
been intended as such) I see it as a jab at wannabes.

If you still don't believe me, try reading tech job postings...

[edit: typo]

~~~
j_baker
Actually, I like the idea for "Things Real People Don't Say About Your App":

"Clearly this app is unusable because it doesn't follow HIG"

"This minimum viable product just isn't minimal enough"

"This site works with just me on it, but I don't think it will scale to
millions of users"

~~~
jodrellblank
"I love the way the columns are too narrow for the text"

"No it's OK, do something irrelevant - I'm happy to wait"

"Sure, I'd love to join your community so I can be notified of updates and
future releases - I don't get much email and would love to hear from you."

"I really enjoy the way all your driver downloads have random numbers for
filenames, HP"

------
ggchappell
Interesting. But I disagree with a number of them.

> I love the copy, but it feels off brand ...

I remember the first time I saw a McPizza ad. It talked about how if you
didn't like one kind, then you could get a different one. And it felt really
strange.

Later I figured it out. Until then, McDonald's ads had always maintained the
premise that everyone likes everything they sell.

> If only this solution was more scalable...

I am constantly annoyed at the idea that "scalable" is a meaningless word.
Nonsense, it is a precise, well-defined, and useful term. True, it does get
misused by marketing people. But the fact is that anyone who is purchasing a
large system of _any_ sort, if they know what they're doing, will have some
concern for scalability.

> Finally, a place for me to share MY story!

Isn't this a huge reason for people going to blogging platforms?

On the other hand:

> This website's music is great - turn it up!

Definitely. No one has ever said that, ever, in the history of the web.

~~~
100k
> Isn't this a huge reason for people going to blogging platforms?

Yes, but that's not what it's lampooning. TONS of ads and websites invite
people to "share their story" or try to take advantage of user generated
content. It's a cheesy cop out. No one wants to share their Doritos story on
the Doritos website.

~~~
aridiculous
Correction: You wish no one wanted to share their Doritos story on the Doritos
website. The sad part is that many times people do.

------
blhack
I don't think that advertisers _want_ consumers to consciously think these
things.

Relevant:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYEf8XZKlUU>

~~~
wmeredith
I agree with OP, here. This site had the guys at my agency rolling, but it's
so funny because it's true. No one in my office thinks real people talk like
this.

We know that when my aunt Kay visits a website and thinks it feels _cheap_ or
_just doesn't hang together_ or _seems like it's not safe to give my credit
card to_ ; it's because they used tired stock photography and their web copy
is in three different voices, or that their copy leading and margins are
inconsistent, or that they have no design language or brand focus.

Real people don't pick it apart like that because they don't care, don't have
the talent to do so, won't acquire the skill to do so or a mix of all three.
However, WE do think like this. And the fact that most people don't think like
this is why all six of us still have jobs after five years.

Also relevant: [http://wademeredith.com/2010/12/your-customers-care-about-
de...](http://wademeredith.com/2010/12/your-customers-care-about-design-even-
if-they-dont/)

------
Stormbringer
In the real world, _people hate advertising_.

This is why as an app developer I am deeply sceptical about Google's model.
Okay, so the consumer saves a buck, but then you chip away at their goodwill
every time you show an ad. And note, when you're showing an ad, to make it
effective you have to make it intrusive, you either have to lock them out of
the free functionality for a while or you need to make it eye-catching.

I don't know anyone that said "I'm so glad Google bought Youtube and plastered
ads all over the videos".

 _People hate advertising_ so much they will go out of their way to avoid it.

In economic terms, as an app developer the way I see it is that free+ads is
really just burning up my user's good will to enrich Google. The more I annoy
my customers like this, the less likely they are to recommend my app. To the
extent that it is less than a zero-sum game... it's not just an even 50:50
trade-off between for pay and ad-supported.

~~~
p_nathan
The right kind of advertising is pretty awesome, because it provides value for
me. Right now, Stack Overflow and Amazon have the best ads out there, IMO. SO
took a while to get decent ads too.

I watched some stuff on Hulu the other day. Fancy cars, teeth whitening
commercials, drugs I don't ever anticipate using, and other _useless stuff to
me_ was marketed at me. That's just not a good ad model I think. I would love
to see some really new and interesting products - not Another Car|Soda|Beer
commercial.

~~~
kpozin
TechCrunch had a good guest article arguing that Hulu's poor targeting is
intentional: <http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/08/hulu-opec/> Hulu has enough
information on its users to target ads very narrowly, but since it's run by a
conglomerate of media companies, it intentionally does not do this in order to
avoid competing with traditional (untargeted but highly profitable) television
advertising.

------
zck
This is a mix of half-amusing misconceptions -- "Of course I'll spend eight
minutes of my life watching your branded content" -- and details that
advertisers should care about -- "I love the copy, but it feels off brand".
Most of the pictures fall into the latter, and are very "inside baseball". Why
would you expect "real people" to talk like that, or chastise advertisers for
doing so? People who buy from Amazon don't care how many servers Amazon has
allocated to recommend products to them, but Amazon engineers certainly care.
People searching Google don't care about the inner workings of how MapReduce
distributes the work over multiple servers.

This website feels like a bunch of immature complaints and useless mockery.

~~~
lukeschlather
I think you're taking it way too seriously. The author clearly has a good
grasp of advertising and why the statements being lampooned are necessary.
Humor doesn't have to be derisive.

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bmr
Maybe not, but those things may still wield pretty heavy influence.
Advertising is a strange world of subconscious desires and difficult-to-
rationalize preferences (colors and shapes of buttons, for example).

~~~
stephencelis
The captions are hyperbolic and quite funny, but perhaps funnier is the fact
that our unconscious brains do have these kinds of reactions (though muted, of
course).

From an article I read the other day:

"The cognitive revolution of the past thirty years provides a different
perspective on our lives, one that emphasizes the relative importance of
emotion over pure reason, social connections over individual choice, moral
intuition over abstract logic, perceptiveness over I.Q."

\-
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/17/110117fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/17/110117fa_fact_brooks?currentPage=all)

------
SandB0x
The best ones work because they use great stock photography where the shots
convey a clear message: <http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lexcpscLrw1qziezc.jpg>

~~~
schwabacher
<http://i.imgur.com/6BSYe.jpg>

;)

~~~
matthiaswh
Even better: [http://tpdsaa.tumblr.com/post/2731266235/submitted-by-
adamle...](http://tpdsaa.tumblr.com/post/2731266235/submitted-by-adamlefever)

That silly call center woman that's on millions of websites.

~~~
alexophile
<http://www.headsethotties.com/>

~~~
trafficlight
I love the 17 star 'Perceived Helpfulness' scale.

------
PixelRobot
Marketing people say the darndest things.

It reminds me to this youtube video somebody posted recently on Twitter:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRDhx8Lo37E> It's totally viral!

No, I'm not related to the video or whoever made it.

------
nobody_nowhere
In case you're wondering -- yes, the non-real people in the ad world say this
shit -- all. the. time. And without irony.

------
mmaunder
"This website's music is great, turn it up!" - LMAO!

The funniest part is that most of this stuff actually works: on message copy,
brand structure (<http://bit.ly/fmyD7T>), the word "solution" has sold
hardware for 3 decades, buzzwords like "social currency" causing enough
confusion to get your attention, focusing on intent increasing
conversions/revenue, font size increasing conversions, branded apps (REI ski
report, Oakley surf report), website users love introspection, stock photos
increasing conversion, focusing on benefits (value prop).

------
run4yourlives
<http://tpdsaa.tumblr.com/post/2724755436/submitted-by-tomheg>

By far the best.

------
iuguy
If anyone wants to see an incredible look into how Sigmund Freud's research
was turned around to manipulate people into consuming more, then Adam Curtis'
excellent The Century of The Self is available to watch here:
<http://thoughtmaybe.com/video/the-century-of-the-self>

If you've never seen an Adam Curtis documentary before, this is a good one to
start with. His style and delivery is unique among documentary filmmakers and
is definitely worth a watch.

~~~
klbarry
You can also buy Edward Bernays books Propaganda and Crystallizing Public
Opinion for a very fair price on Amazon, though Propaganda at least isn't so
great.

~~~
FiddlerClamp
Also, a book written by Vance Packard at the height of 1950s advertising
called "The Hidden Persuaders", if you can find a copy. All about
'motivational research' and how subconscious cues can be used to sell and
persuade. Very interesting -- for example, how some customers liked extremely-
strong-smelling soap because it provided them with the same type of 'defense'
in a socially-accepted way that B.O. did.

------
lkozma
In a similar vein: <http://businessguysonbusinesstrips.com/>

------
anorwell
> I wonder if my user experience is living up to their intentions

I think this a lot, actually.

> Hooray, we fall into the correct segment

If segment means target demographic, then I think this a lot too.

~~~
corin_
> I think this a lot, actually.

By "real people" they mean "people who don't read HN".

------
humj
I don't think the post was intended to say that advertisers actually think
that people talk or even think this way, I think the post was to point out
that often, marketers will have a certain perspective on their product and try
to force that perspective onto its users. The reality is, users don't care
about your perspective. They only care whether or not the product meets their
needs.

~~~
aridiculous
Ha! If that was the case, 95% of products in industrialized countries wouldn't
exist.

Good advertising and branding works -- they generate demand.

------
andreyf
I thought the music on pinkberry's website was pretty cool:
<http://www.pinkberry.com/>

------
gills
Let's just go ahead and coin the term "lol ads".

~~~
timwiseman
Ad fail.

In all seriousness though, humor used well for the right type of product is
extremely effective. I can no longer find the source, but I read somewhere
that the Old Spice Body Wash sales went up close to 100% when the Old Spice
Guy commercials were running. My wife even bought some for me the next she
went shopping after she saw the ad. She said it was just to reward them for
the ad itself, then she decided she liked how it smelled and kept buying it
for me, all because the ad was funny.

~~~
p_nathan
Old Spice Guy was a pretty striking ad series. I don't know that it
_resonated_ with me, but it sure is memorable!

------
mambodog
This is by the same guy as Never Said About Restaurant Websites:
<http://neversaidaboutrestaurantwebsites.tumblr.com/>

------
superted
On a similar note: [http://thehairpin.com/2011/01/women-laughing-alone-with-
sala...](http://thehairpin.com/2011/01/women-laughing-alone-with-salad/)

"Women Laughing Alone With Salad"

------
wallflower
The address <http://tpdsaa.tumblr.com/> makes me think the blog was originally
missing the baiting 'Real' adjective.

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taiyab
The use of common stock photography just makes it even better lol

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benreesman
where's the call to action?! I can't find the fucking call to action!

------
klbarry
They wouldn't say it those terms, but they might very well think it or say it
in other terms. You wouldn't say, "Holy shit! This call to action button is
better" but you might want to click it more.

