Important! First I start with a wild web search:
20180905/DuckDuckGo advertisers trying to distract
Then I find a really great article about ads, from lifehacker.com.
How Advertising Manipulates Your Choices and Spending Habits (and What to Do About It)
20180905/https://lifehacker.com/5824328/how-advertising-manipulates-your-choices-and-spending-habits-and-what-to-do-about-it
Well, it’s more about the effect that ads have on people, and the problems that ads can introduce into people’s lives. Wow, indeed I must agree, this article is very insightful and genuine.
I must emphasize this point. That article is a very excellent and well written article. The first time through trying to take notes on it, I was quoting so many long text sections that I had to reconsider my approach and just direct the reader to go read that article in full, with a hearty encouragement like this one. Yes, it’s really that great.
In spite of that, let’s try to summarize some of the most important key points presented here.
-
“The Problem: Advertising Is for the Rich, Not You.” Many ads advertise nice-to-haves that are not life essentials, but the whole concept of actually purchasing the item advertised is beyond the means of the middle class.
-
The primary purposes of ads are to tell you about a product and to arbitrarily justify it. Often times an emotional justification is used for maximum deception.
-
Only you can logically determine if a product is right for you, not the ads.
-
The lack of adequate logical determination and the impulse of advertising has taken its toll on some people. The advertising influences are multi-faceted.
Take the show Friends, for example. Rachel and Monica shared a gigantic apartment in Manhattan despite Rachel working, for some time, as a waitress and Monica as a chef. Collectively they enjoyed a lifestyle they couldn’t afford. This is one example of many in which you’ll find TV characters living outside their means with no consequences. Entertainment shows us average people living a better lifestyle than they can afford without many monetary concerns. And then we’re shown advertisements, compelling us to buy the lifestyle depicted in our favorite shows.
The combined results on the middle class, i.e. the quantitative statistics on lifestyle that really matter? Those who succumb to marketing messages find themselves in heavy credit card debt that is tough to pay out of. The penultimate conclusion of this are advertisements on services to escape credit card debt. Where do you think this is going to end?
-
The real solution. Start making lifestyle changes.
-
First, become more skilled at identifying marketing messages, then look critically for the logic, or lack thereof. Don’t be fooled by the emotional deception.
-
Second, if that is not working for you well enough, take steps to avoid ads. Now, this is where things get really interesting.
-
“If you want to cut out ads from television and never, ever see them, your options aren’t necessarily great.”
-
“You can buy DVDs when they come out several months after the television season has ended”You can buy DVDs when they come out several months after the television season has ended
-
“You can purchase content at a premium (either online or on demand through your cable provider)”
-
“You can download content via the internet (which may require a set of flexible ethics)”
-
“You can’t remove or block ads in a magazine or newspaper, so you’ll have to start reading online and use an ad blocker.”
-
“Even with all of that, you still can’t avoid billboard ads or ads you see outside of your personally cultivated ad-free zone. You’re also not without the influence of reference lifestyles (as discussed earlier) unless you cut out entertainment media altogether.”
-
-
Ultimately, you can’t avoid all ads, especially those that have already been experienced and are in latent memory, so you’re going to need to focus on getting good at staying logical even in light of marketing messages.
-
Implementing “a mandatory holding pattern” on your purchases, where you write down a product that you want and don’t purchase it until a few days later, is a great approach to tackling the problem of impulsive purchasing that advertisers work so hard to persuade.
Here are some other interesting articles that were linked.
20180905/https://jezebel.com/5742413/this-is-what-really-hides-in-taco-bells-beef
20180905/https://lifehacker.com/5713806/enforce-a-mandatory-holding-pattern-to-curb-your-spending
20180905/https://lifehacker.com/5511726/hone-your-eye-for-fake-online-reviews
20180905/https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sold-language/201107/can-nostalgic-advertising-re-write-your-childhood-memories
Ultimately, there’s a much bigger question at work here, though. Suppose you are running a business of your own and you want to run some advertisements, literally for the sake of telling people about your product. Also, suppose you have a really strong belief in honesty and integrity when running your business. How do you go about doing it? Now, here’s my attempt to define an ethical advertising model.
-
Focus on your primary goal. Your primary goal is to tell other people about your product.
-
Do not use an arbitrary justification for why people should buy your product. Especially, avoid deceptive justifications that hinge off of emotions.
-
Focus on describing your product for its own merits. Do not use superficial claims of how your product compares to the competition.
-
Do not try to convince the viewer that your product is a must-have. That is a decision that only they can make. It could be a mighty well idea to emphasize this point in your own advertisement.
-
Do not target your ads in media where the viewer is most “vulnerable”: newspapers, magazines, television, and so on. Try to get your ads placed where you know your users will have full logical thinking on them.
-
You probably don’t want to run your ads in any “sideline” for that reason. Try to focus more on getting your ads inside the focus content of whatever media you pick. If your target is a directory, get a directory entry for your business and get it sorted out into the proper categories.
In practice, this “sideline” rule means that you won’t be able to use many sources of ads.