The only ads I want to see are the posters my kids make telling me to come see their musical, posts on here about how someone wrote a book, made a clay pot or designed some software.
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There are levels to advertising. The most basic is a person who wants you to buy their thing. The ad simply tells you what the thing is and asks you to buy it.
The next level are ads that generate a BRAND they give the brand an image and mystique. These start to work on your emotions.
The next level manipulates your emotions, ads that make you feel FOMO, or ugly, or raw lust, they try to circumvent the mind and generate irrational desire.
The final level is the ad that cannot be easily recognized as an ad. This is when the ad is embedded in other media to normalize buying and using the product while also acting on emotions.
Only the first level is acceptable IMO.
"This is my thing, buy it, here it is."
The others all involve degrees of deception and manipulation that show a kind of contempt for the customer.
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There are levels to advertising. The most basic is a person who wants you to buy their thing. The ad simply tells you what the thing is and asks you to buy it.
The next level are ads that generate a BRAND they give the brand an image and mystique. These start to work on your emotions.
The next level manipulates your emotions, ads that make you feel FOMO, or ugly, or raw lust, they try to circumvent the mind and generate irrational desire.
@futurebird I wish, somehow, we could be in a world where there is only the first. The levels of manipulation overall these days is truly frightening. People fall so much into it all, giving up so much along the way. What scares me is the second and third can convince people so strongly that they'll actually insist it's better than it is and fight for it against competitors and things that offer better options. They'll spend more to get less and they'll fight against anyone who suggests they shouldn't. This drives whole markets to go this direction and pulls the rest of us along with them...
As you say, an ad should just be "this is the thing, this is its features and specifications."
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The only ads I want to see are the posters my kids make telling me to come see their musical, posts on here about how someone wrote a book, made a clay pot or designed some software. And the ads from the shady local lawyers in NYC who try to make up raps about how they will help you if you have been injured in a car accident.
@futurebird I also want to see ads when I deliberately search for them because I want to buy something!
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There are levels to advertising. The most basic is a person who wants you to buy their thing. The ad simply tells you what the thing is and asks you to buy it.
The next level are ads that generate a BRAND they give the brand an image and mystique. These start to work on your emotions.
The next level manipulates your emotions, ads that make you feel FOMO, or ugly, or raw lust, they try to circumvent the mind and generate irrational desire.
@futurebird This taxonomy isn't exhaustive. For example, I write books. These days my name has become a brand (it's on the cover in larger type than the title), but it's also a thing-identifier: if you liked my earlier novels you'll probably like this one too.
And there's a final level variant: I have a blog. It's full of my writing. It's entirely free and I don't use it to sell anything—it's effectively a free sampler and community hub for my fans. Yes it's manipulative! But is it bad?
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The only ads I want to see are the posters my kids make telling me to come see their musical, posts on here about how someone wrote a book, made a clay pot or designed some software. And the ads from the shady local lawyers in NYC who try to make up raps about how they will help you if you have been injured in a car accident.
@futurebird Also Dr Zizmor ads even though he retired a decade ago
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You need to listen to baseball games on the radio (yes the old time radio with a tuner and the knob and everything)
Listening to a Yankees game on the radio on the roof when I can hear the sound of the bat and crowd from the stadium nearby is the most lovely way to experience a game IMO.
And you get to hear all of the goofy local radio ads.
@futurebird @gbargoud Does Yankees radio get some Union Local ad too or is that one reserved for Mets radio?
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The final level is the ad that cannot be easily recognized as an ad. This is when the ad is embedded in other media to normalize buying and using the product while also acting on emotions.
Only the first level is acceptable IMO.
"This is my thing, buy it, here it is."
The others all involve degrees of deception and manipulation that show a kind of contempt for the customer.
@futurebird
how do we know the first level person isn't lying?i really do hate hate hate ads and i'm still fighting
the endless ublock origin etc etc whackamole fight
to avoid many of them, but..sometimes brands seem to serve as costly signals..
that having a reputation to lose is valuable to the
advertiser, so it can mean something to me. (until
the brand is sold to private equity for strip mining..) -
@futurebird This taxonomy isn't exhaustive. For example, I write books. These days my name has become a brand (it's on the cover in larger type than the title), but it's also a thing-identifier: if you liked my earlier novels you'll probably like this one too.
And there's a final level variant: I have a blog. It's full of my writing. It's entirely free and I don't use it to sell anything—it's effectively a free sampler and community hub for my fans. Yes it's manipulative! But is it bad?
I read a MBA-curriculum text on marketing once. The first chapter. It described “tell people why they would like the product” as advertising. But those markets _saturate_, it said. _Marketing_, it said, rouses some existential pain and then hooks a brand to the _idea_ of comfort. But comfort never really comes so we can keep selling forever.
I suppose your blog could do the latter, but it seems more like the inside than the outside of your novels.
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@futurebird
how do we know the first level person isn't lying?i really do hate hate hate ads and i'm still fighting
the endless ublock origin etc etc whackamole fight
to avoid many of them, but..sometimes brands seem to serve as costly signals..
that having a reputation to lose is valuable to the
advertiser, so it can mean something to me. (until
the brand is sold to private equity for strip mining..)If advertising is on a human scale the person or group of people sending out the ad can respond to reactions, comments and concerns from the people who see it to some degree.
People can always lie.
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Sometimes I look up photos of the players on my phone so I can better imagine what everyone is doing.
But I've considered just getting some baseball cards, which is how this used to be done. You can lay everyone out on a card table and follow the game that way.
@futurebird @gbargoud I can recommend Test Match Special like this for cricket. No ads, because it's on BBC radio, but it's still the best way of watching cricket, short of actually being seated in the ground.
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The only ads I want to see are the posters my kids make telling me to come see their musical, posts on here about how someone wrote a book, made a clay pot or designed some software. And the ads from the shady local lawyers in NYC who try to make up raps about how they will help you if you have been injured in a car accident.
@futurebird Those lawyer billboards have become so dominant in our area that it seems to have become a competition among 3 (or more?) law firms as to whose faces can be more omnipresent. The lawyer who began this blitz even got a puff piece written about her in one of the local newspapers. The lawyer with the most ads is not likely to be the best lawyer.
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If advertising is on a human scale the person or group of people sending out the ad can respond to reactions, comments and concerns from the people who see it to some degree.
People can always lie.
@futurebird
I guess at really human scale it's hardly even advertising, vs like "I heard Bob's got extra goat milk" or whatever. People can always lie though consequences can differ. -
The final level is the ad that cannot be easily recognized as an ad. This is when the ad is embedded in other media to normalize buying and using the product while also acting on emotions.
Only the first level is acceptable IMO.
"This is my thing, buy it, here it is."
The others all involve degrees of deception and manipulation that show a kind of contempt for the customer.
@futurebird every time i see or think the likes of OP my inclination is to make a distinction based on people i know vs strangers, or local vs. global, etc. and it's always unsatisfactory
this classification based on form and intent makes so much more sense -
You need to listen to baseball games on the radio (yes the old time radio with a tuner and the knob and everything)
Listening to a Yankees game on the radio on the roof when I can hear the sound of the bat and crowd from the stadium nearby is the most lovely way to experience a game IMO.
And you get to hear all of the goofy local radio ads.
live at one of the two "old style" ball parks (wrigley and fenway) and sitting in the bleacher section is also something everyone should get to experience at least once.
i find baseball on TV much like golf. it all looks the same after 10 minutes. but the crowds and experience at a small ball park is totally different.
i do have some memories of small transistor radios and games but my dad wasn't a huge sports fan.
i do have fond memories of summers on roof/deck in NYC with the transistor radio playing music when i was a young kid.
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The only ads I want to see are the posters my kids make telling me to come see their musical, posts on here about how someone wrote a book, made a clay pot or designed some software. And the ads from the shady local lawyers in NYC who try to make up raps about how they will help you if you have been injured in a car accident.
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There are levels to advertising. The most basic is a person who wants you to buy their thing. The ad simply tells you what the thing is and asks you to buy it.
The next level are ads that generate a BRAND they give the brand an image and mystique. These start to work on your emotions.
The next level manipulates your emotions, ads that make you feel FOMO, or ugly, or raw lust, they try to circumvent the mind and generate irrational desire.
There are so many ads now that are preying on just raw unadulterated greed (this falls in your FOMO category) and it just saddens me.
On the one hand, greed is such a base emotion and the love of money is the root of all evil…but on the other there are a lot of desperate people out there who need a way out and will take what they (are told they) can get.
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live at one of the two "old style" ball parks (wrigley and fenway) and sitting in the bleacher section is also something everyone should get to experience at least once.
i find baseball on TV much like golf. it all looks the same after 10 minutes. but the crowds and experience at a small ball park is totally different.
i do have some memories of small transistor radios and games but my dad wasn't a huge sports fan.
i do have fond memories of summers on roof/deck in NYC with the transistor radio playing music when i was a young kid.
I don't know if it is "old style" but the one in Pittsburgh is pretty great with a nice view of the city and a fun crowd walking across the bridge downtown after the game
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The only ads I want to see are the posters my kids make telling me to come see their musical, posts on here about how someone wrote a book, made a clay pot or designed some software. And the ads from the shady local lawyers in NYC who try to make up raps about how they will help you if you have been injured in a car accident.
agreed. local deranged advertising is a national treasure. not real, but it sums up the bad production values and insane messaging:
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I don't know if it is "old style" but the one in Pittsburgh is pretty great with a nice view of the city and a fun crowd walking across the bridge downtown after the game
@gbargoud @paul_ipv6 @futurebird Can confirm
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I don't know if it is "old style" but the one in Pittsburgh is pretty great with a nice view of the city and a fun crowd walking across the bridge downtown after the game
more modern, but that isn't all bad. SF giants park is a decent compromise for a "newer" style park too.
