zlacker

>>smnrg+(OP)
This feels very similar in my mind to blanket concepts like "let's ban lobbying". There are certainly specific modes or practices in lobbying that are damaging to society, but lobbying itself (specifically, informing lawmakers about your specific perspective and desires) is a valid and desirable function.

Likewise, advertising on its own at its core is useful: there might be something that adds value to your life that someone else is trying to provide and the only missing link is that you don't know about it.

In both cases, it seems totally fine to have strict guardrails about what kinds of practices we deem not okay (e.g. banning advertising to children, or banning physical ads larger than some size or in some locations), but the extreme take of the article felt like it intentionally left no room for nuance.

>>gamema+8i
Anyone who has found out about a useful product through advertising that you wouldn’t have know about otherwise, purchased it, and been pleased with your purchase, raise your hand.

Anyone?

This whole “advertising is useful” thing sounds like the spherical cow of marketing to me. It might make sense in abstract but it doesn’t reflect reality.

>>wat100+wy
Many people, otherwise advertising wouldn’t work at all and the industry wouldn’t exist. Even if you hear it via some other source, they may have heard of it via some form of advertising.

>>mindwo+tN
That doesn’t follow. Most advertising exists to make you more likely to buy the product, not merely to inform you that it exists.

>>wat100+sP
one follows the other though, no? how can you make me buy something if I’ve never heard of you?

>>bdangu+3Q
Sure, if nobody has ever heard of you then making them aware of you is a necessary step in making them more likely to buy your stuff.

But that doesn’t mean it’s a major benefit of advertising. There are plenty of other ways to discover products, and most advertising is done by established brands to people who already know about them. How much advertising do Apple, Coca-Cola, Toyota, etc. do? How many people are unaware that their products exist?