people should remember that advertising was equally vilified at all times , whether it was on TV or print or radio. But at the time the EU was wise enough not to destroy its media economy. This time it's different
Ok, but can you provide an actual argument explaining why advertising (in general) is a good thing for society and the economy?
You've mentioned multiple times the "it's good at extracting huge sums of money out of people making decisions against their own interests, which goes on to fund other endeavors" argument, but I don't think that's a good thing on the whole.
If you can forgive a huge exaggeration from my part, to me it sounds similar to saying that criminal activities are great because the money earned from those activities can go on to spur economic activity in the region (I'm not saying advertising is a criminal activity, but I think you get my point).
That was an interesting comparison of behavioral vs non-behavioral ads, thanks.
But my question was geared towards the value of advertising itself, in general (if there is any).
I am aware of the unknown unknown problem you mentioned (I think), but in my experience as a layman, very very rarely (if ever) was I introduced to a great product or service through advertising that I wouldn't be aware of in other ways.
Conversely, the amount of ads for substandard products and services (i.e. those which I know for sure there are better alternatives, at least for me and others around me) is infinitely greater.
And I don't think it's just because the ads are not targeted enough. I'm pretty sure I am a hugely interesting target for many, many companies, but I am simply not interested in them (and never will) because other companies have much better products/services (many of which I already use).
I am assuming, of course, that the only reason they're interested in targeting ads to me, is to influence me to make a buying decision that I wouldn't do otherwise, and not just because I wasn't aware of the product/service. Because if it wasn't for influencing me making a buying decision, why would they spend the money to show me an ad?
That's why I always try to ignore (and block) ads as much as possible, even though that's not always possible (e.g. street ads). Yet, I am still being bombarded with non-stop ads and I have no question that I'm being negatively influenced by them, especially in those areas I know very little about (e.g. cleaning products) or am susceptible to being influenced against my own interests (e.g. fast food or other crappy, addictive food products).
In my experience, the success rate of my own research (when looking for a product/service) or even word-of-mouth recommendations has far, far outweighed the success rate of all the ad campaigns I've ever been a target of, from my own perspective (not from the companies' perspectives, of course).
So it's not that I don't see any value in advertising, which I don't (unless you're the advertiser), it's that I think it's actively damaging to society (due to leading people to make bad buying decisions) and the economy in general (due to increased inefficiency).
Thanks, this does mirror my experience in many ways so I'll try to reply to each of your points. In my comment, I did talk about the value of advertising itself (not just contextual/behavioural).
Regarding your experience, a lot of advertising is retargeting or keeping the brand alive in the minds of buyers or remind them constantly (since humans are forgetful). This statistically increases the probability of purchases made amongst a cohort (very measurable). Personally, I think this is user-hostile and is a strong case for having more control over the kinds of ads we're exposed to or limit/penalise harmful ones. Taken to the extreme (going on a slight tangent here), if we really owned/controlled our devices and software, which means having control over consumption, we'd block all ads which would incentivise platforms to remove the distinction between content and ads and we'd do more content filtering on the client (This is however computationally inefficient, a sort of arms race).
Regarding influencing behaviour, it's a lot more efficient to match the right seller to the right buyer rather than influence buyer behaviour (which is hard). However, to achieve that extra marginal gains/returns on ad spend, advertisers often do attempt to change buyer behaviour (through building brand associations, retargeting etc). Again, better user control would help here.
Agree on street ads and other public real world ads as there is no consent here (Real world movement is a need, not a choice).
Regarding ads vs word-of-mouth, Ads really are very effective for many people, in a measurable way, both quantitative and qualitative. It of course will differ from person to person.
Regarding increased inefficiency and effect on the economy more generally, ads actually increase efficiency in the system as long as they are not rent-seeking (i.e. pay to jump the queue) or user-hostile. Eg: It helps many niche businesses reach customers which are otherwise very hard to reach (due to geographical or novelty constraints). Taken to the extreme, all value gained from advertising will ultimately flow to the ad platforms. Even in this extreme case, overall consumption increases (due to buyers buying more) as well as competition (due to many more competitive small businesses, innovators dilemma theory) which is good for a capitalist economy (i.e. makes it more dynamic in both choice and inequality) and increases GDP (a poor metric).
As an aside, it's also a progressive tax (I.e rich and poor both consume the same good but advertisers pay more to reach the rich, thus funding the good for the poor).
Some extreme opinions below on the fundamentals:
<Rant>
Even in localist/anarchist/decentralised utopias, ads won't die (especially personalised). It's a fundamental need of humans and the only other form of payment (apart from paying for compute itself) that doesn't depend on a system of violence to enforce it. As long as there exists economies of scale, there will be marketing (to increase consumption and hence cheapening it per capita i.e. use less labor), and hence advertising (to solve the unknown-unknown problem or presenting/impressing).
i.e. Even when we eliminate competitive enterprise, build localised production of needs, and have full control of our devices, if we want to build something cheaply or spread an idea, we'd have to advertise. It would look a lot more like "advertising on the merits" with full user control though considering human nature, there will also be a lot of "advertising focused on presentation".
Wow, thanks for the really long and thoughtful answer!
I think your answer made me realize something which might explain some of the different viewpoints we have.
You seem to have the general idea that, with some exceptions, ads are useful. This reminds me of my experience of doing a coast-to-coast road trip in the US and being amazed at how many more signs with ads I would see by the road and inside towns, compared to Europe. I was also fascinated by the radio ads, as everything was so different than what I was used to. The amount, creativity and sheer diversity of ads was astounding and something to behold.
As a tourist, I associate these ads positively in my mind because in many cases, I would have no idea of all the different things that there were around me if I didn't see those ads, like restaurants, museums, supermarkets, local attractions, etc. A few of these ads were extremely useful, but many were also interesting because it made me experience a part of American culture that I wouldn't experience otherwise, including its great capitalistic nature (I love capitalism itself) and all the variety of businesses that there were. Perhaps with the occasional exception, I don't recall these ads being obnoxious.
My experience with ads as a European citizen is the polar opposite. Here, I don't find them useful at all. I always see all the same ads, all the time. They're repetitive, loud, obnoxious, with no creativity, no diversity and transmit no useful information.
It's mostly large, multinational companies, with the occasional local or national company whose ad you see or hear over and over again, thousands of times, to the point of exhaustion. This is especially true in TV, radio (including online radio) and also the same outdoor signs which you always encounter when driving to the same spots.
If you've seen one Coca Cola ad, you've seen all the other thousand of them, basically. Especially when they are exactly the same ad. But I can't turn them off. It can get quite maddening when your favorite local radio only has 3 ad spots and they're always the exact same obnoxious ads, for months on end.
Or when you're watching TV and it goes to commercials and you always see exactly the same $huge_company ads, in the same exact order, over and over again.
Online ads, such as in Youtube or social platforms, can in most cases be a similar experience. In my subjective experience, it seems like I've been exposed to 1000x more Coca Cola, Burger King, and $giant_car_brand type ads than things which could actually be useful to me.
Really, the only memorable experiences which begin to approach your arguments in favor of useful ads is if, say, I'm watching some video or podcast about some really niche topic and most or all the ads are related to that topic. The vast majority of these are still completely useless to me, but at least I don't find these as obnoxious as the generic ones as long as they're not too repetitive or in-your-face (which unfortunately is also common).
I also have the anecdotal experience of buying many different types of ads for a local business of an acquaintance, for extended periods of time, to see what worked and what didn't. This includes times when it was just physical ads (geographically constrained), or just online ads, in different ad platforms, at first somewhat generic but later increasingly targeted ads, to the point where in the end we were only showing ads to people we thought would definitely be interested in the service. We also tried a company that specializes in online ads. Perhaps our experience was not representative, but I can tell you without a doubt that it was a complete waste of time and money, as the acquired customers were very few and very low quality. What really worked, by far, was simply stopping the ads and relying on word-of-mouth recommendations. That's how the business really got going. This is not a niche business, it is something that is occasionally needed by most people, either by going to the business physically or online. The competition was only small, mostly local businesses, there are exactly zero large national or multinational businesses in this market.
So I don't know, maybe the ad market here where I live is crap or maybe it's simply that it's completely dominated by all the giant companies, but all I can tell you is that I would praise the Gods if all ads magically disappeared tomorrow.
