advertising

following on from a debate regarding tagging being a form of advertising, i thought we could actually get some educated debates from a dedicated thread...

what are your thoughts on advertising in general?

do you think it is a pain to society?

do you think people are going too far?

we have advertising today on everything from pens at the doctors office, spam email, billboards, tv ads, spam sms, telemarketing, sponsorship, even labels on the sugar when you get coffee at a cafe...


but, on the plus side for advertising, it does pay for a lot of things we take for granted..... it pays for our television services, it keeps our football teams afloat, it helps get kids sport up and running, and it puts money back into research and development of products to bring us new and interesting goodies....

if our employers didnt advertise, they would not have as much money to play with, and we may infact be out of a job..

if you are self employed, you will realise the importance of spreading the name of your business...



but, on the flip side, it can get a bit overwhelming at times...



in my opinon, i have no problem with billboards, tv ads, radio ads etc, as they are reasonably inobtrusive and you can block them out if you want...

what i have a problem with is telemarketers, spam email and spam sms. anything where people generally invade your private times (which i consider my phone and net to be...)

and dont even get me started on pop up ads...


but anyways... wot does everyone else think???

This thread has made me angry.

It's not every day a Muzby thread has such an effect on me.

I hate advertising soooo much. However, it can be useful for discovering new products. Maybe I hate repetitive advertising.

Yes, the same shit over and over again, especially when I didn't pay any attention the 1st time really pisses me off. I listen to JJJ partly to avoid advertising

I don't mind ads. I read junk mail, and ads on TV don't really fuss me either (except when the same one is repeated 10 times in one show ). I choose to listen to a commercial radio station, so I can hardly complain about the advertising there, either. I sometimes even cut coupons off packaging and enter competitions, or buy something in the supermarket because of the fancy display.

I understand marketing, because I work in that world, so it doesn't anger me. It's the way the world works, and fucked if I'm going to waste my energy flailing my fists about it.

I know how hard it is for businesses to get "seen", and how disastrously quick your slide into obscurity is if you don't achieve that. I do prefer subtler forms of marketing though - advertorials, magazine ads, competitions on products etc, links to company websites. Stuff that I can choose to explore if I want to, and ignore if I don't.

But like muzby I despise being intruded apon by pop ups on the computer and spam email. I didn't *choose* that, like I chose to buy Cosmo or listen to Triple M. I'm nice to telemarketers though - although I'm learning to grow a spine

Advertising is fucked up. I hate main stream culture and it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid advertising which spreads these horrible deals.

I hate having Australian Idol shoved down my neck, especially when its just a ploy to make shitty pop artists popular before trying to sell records that would otherwise flop. I call for an immediate renaming of the show to 'Pop Singer' or something equally as shit ... 'Australian Idol' implies a national beer drinking championship, or something else cool and idolworthy.

TV advertising is now beyond a joke. I actually saw an advertisement on channel ten saying they had less ads during their crappy Australian tv-movie than their rivals. They actually thought the public would be impressed that they only had 6 ad-breaks during a show that they clearly couldn't sell the advertising for.

I find it so offensive when a product screens two ads in one ad break. This is made worse when they show the same ad twice in a row .. originally i thought it was a malfunction on behalf of the station, but with it being such a regular occurence, now i'm not so sure.

Then you've got the 'paid presentations'. I'm sorry, but for people under the age of 25, 11pm - 4am is considered prime time television. They could put on MASH re-runs and id still watch them (although i hate MASH), but why insult us by trying to sell plush teddy bears and wrinkle cream. The sad thing is that people actually believe what is said during these paid presentations .. even when numerous disclaimers are flashed on the screen saying 'individual results may vary' and 'this product may not actually work'.

The evil cousin of this is 'brand-power', where a seemingly 'unbiased' presenter informs of us of an 'excellent product'. This is by far the least credible form of advertising and i think it should be made illegal. It's clearly a paid ad, dressed up to look like an independent product review.

Then you've got product placement in tv and movies .. constant drinking of pepsi cans .. the reason i notice is because Coke doesnt seem to spend much on this type of shit and IRL, nobody drinks pepsi, ever. It's offensive to think that i pay to watch DVD's that contained advertisement .. but as muzby said, advertising drives so many industries.

If you don't have something worthwhile to say .. DO NOT use flyers. Nothing worse than having people on every corner handing out flyers that people immediately discard onto the pavement. In general, people are so insulted by shitty flyers, that they won't even hold onto them long enough to put them in the bin. Unless you are offering something for FREE or promoting a GOOD cause (not your religious beliefs), just fuck off and stop wasting paper.

To be honest, I've never found spam to be offensive .. blocking a sender is much easier than putting a shitty flyer in the rubbish bin. My main email address is spam free and i accept that my hotmail addy and other shitty email addy's will get spam. SMS spam is absolutely unacceptable unless they offer you free phone calls/sms.

i actually like when the service station guy asks me if id like the 2-for-1 chocolate bar deal However, don't ever ask me if i want 'fries or a drink with that'. Fries and a drink are always on the menu, so when i order ive specifically chosen not to get them .. unlike the 2-for-1 chocolate bar deal that i may not have been aware of when i made my initial purchase.

but yeah, I fucken hate advertising and the role it plays in our society .. and if Robin Hood, umm i mean Lostpunk, thinks of some way that advertising is screwing us over .. id definately agree

I tell you what really gets my goat RE: ads. The advent of those fucking "mono" or "poly" ringtone ads... i don't know if they're on free to air, but they are played CONSTANTLY on pay TV. I've stopped watching alot of channels for this very reason.

We aren't affected by email spam anymore (touch wood). I think Telstra have pretty good protection? I use Mozilla Firefox, so pop-ups are a thing of the past (phew).

I also read most junk mail, and also do the coupon thing. When you're not living at home, (even if you are), any saving is good saving.

One thing that has REALLY pissed us off is the fact that we paid for a silent number (as we do every year) but our number was printed in the phone book. Now EVERY f**king telemarketer and his/her dog is calling us for surveys and "really great deals". We even had a call from an overseas telemarketing company asking us if we wanted to save on international phone calls. It sucked because my dad lives overseas, and at the time, my grandmother was gravely ill. I was waiting for a call from him, saw "overseas" on our caller ID and expectantly picked up the phone; lo and behold...a telemarketer! Needless to say, i was tres unimpressed.

RE: handling telemarketers, i tell them i'm not interested. If they choose to ignore that statement, i hang up.

Well, as a business student who studies marketing, I've kind of gone from hating ads, or laughing at ads, or whatever, to viewing them with sort of morbid fascination. I like to consider what message the advertising execs thought they were getting across, and to pick apart their trains of thought. It's actually very interesting.

Like, ads like the "Thorpey's Advice Line" one, where he says "tell your kids they're fully sick!" - who exactly did the execs get to do their market research? Nizmo?

And there's an ad for Lean Cuisine that goes "Only eat good fats, don't eat bad fats! Have small meals, don't eat large meals! Get a tan, stay out of the sun! Don't get too fat, don't get too thin!" in reference to being healthy being hard to understand. But like, the first half of the ad describes what you should do, and then says what you shouldn't do. The second half gives two contradicting ideas. WHY? Why not make the ad consistent? Didn't you watch it before you put it on TV and think 'hang on, that doesn't make a lot of sense'?

So I'm not annoyed by ads, because I'm a really perverse learner and I find them interesting for their theoretical aspects. They're also interesting to me in terms of my own advertising. Mm!

Am I the only person who does this?

No you are not. Altho I am not in that industry I have learnt a bit about it in the past and I sometimes do the same thing. Probably more often when an ad is really annoying so I wonder who the target audience really is coz it certainly ain't me.

I hate the new Panadol ads more than anything at the moment. That fuck head actor with his head ache. Oh poor baby, in your air conditioned comfort all day. And then the cowboy who doesn't like to muck around when it comes to pain. That's right he gets pissed and smokes cones to deal with his pain. Doesn't think twice about panadol. And then theres the guy who wakes up in front of his computer and next to half a pizza complaining that he "had a late one". And is going to keep his 9am appointment. Those of us who start work at 5 in the morning think you are a fuck head!!!

End anti-panadol rant.

P.S Buy Herron coz its Aussie

The biggest problem that i have with advertising is the fact that it effects you subconsciously.

so harmless. my arse!

My pet peeve at the moment is Holden Merchandise, which is the most annoying kind of advertising I can think of. I'm so sick of seeing every man woman and child wearing holden jackets, buying holden doona covers, and plastering the logo on every possible product.
Dont they understand that they are paying for overpriced products, basically selling their bodies as advertising space for Holden?? They are walking billboards. It makes me mad.


Now I know advertising has its purpose, and when used for good instead of evil can be quite effective. Im just sick of the sexist, cliched, stereotypical ads that are out there. Point and case, the cougar ads with the well-endowed woman.

I've forgotten what my original point was, because the computer crashed and i had to start again

{EdiT}: interestingly enough,Im watching Queer as folk at the moment and they are talking about advertising and honesty is their campaign

I can't wait until they start to install AUDIOSPOTLIGHT into vending machines and billboards.
Then it will be truely an invasion of space/privacy.

http://www.holosonics.com/

It's not far off either kiddies

Oh and I am sick of the coke ads. They fucking get my goat.

Products I boycott as a result of shitty ads:
- Sultana Bran
- Carpet Court
- Nicobate... or Nicorette... whichever one has the woman in labour in awe of her non-smoking husband
- HCF (that lady has some indefinable quality that shits me)
- Anything Channel 10 hypes

I'm positive there are many more, but my mind is being a stupidhead and I can't think of any.

Products I wish I could boycott as a result of their shitty ads:
- Virgin Mobile
- Coles (fuck, I hate Lisa McCune)

doof-kittie said:

My pet peeve at the moment is Holden Merchandise, which is the most annoying kind of advertising I can think of. I'm so sick of seeing every man woman and child wearing holden jackets, buying holden doona covers, and plastering the logo on every possible product.
Dont they understand that they are paying for overpriced products, basically selling their bodies as advertising space for Holden?? They are walking billboards. It makes me mad.

Click to expand...

I've had this annoying peeve for a long time, most of the people that wear this Holden shit can't even AFFORD to buy a Holden themselves.

I'm like anna in that I take an almost morbid fascination in the deconstruction of those kind of things. It's all part of the uni course...

Although I view advertising/marketing and maybe public relations to be the biggest single wastes of human money, time, effort and talent, they are necessary evils of a capitalist society. I'd remove it in a second.I hate direct, database marketing though and most of all I despise telemarketers.

Simple solution? Everytime someone contacts you with direct advertising ask these 2 things:
1) how did you get my number?
2) Remove my number from the database, and any other databases of which you have control.

Legally they can't complain, and you get 1 step closer to removing yourself from a wide managerie of databases to which you are simply a name and a bunch of demographic details.

The largest danger I see in advertising is the way it enforces gender steriotypes and roles. Notice, it's always a woman advertising your cleaning goods? Always a man driving the big V8 ute (which is driven at rediculious and unsafe speeds)? These repeating patterns are what is dangerous, as it re-enforces patterns of thought and representation.

This is the greatest ad although it's probably more applicable to our american friends rather than us aussies.

Fight the power - buy nothing day, 26th nov 2004.

i couldnt care less, since i was born with a wonderful gift called "making up your own mind"

if you let advertising affect you, fine
if you dont let it affect you, fine

You people would hate me then...I drive one of those smart cars with an ad trailer on the back. However even I hate them. I find them annoying and rude and obtrusive and why the fuck should they be driven in peak hour!! If I wasn't paid so well for it I would hate me...oh the conflict.

I really hate the ads for ringtones too...every ad break on MTV there are at least 4 of them forphuxake.

'lil leecie said:

I really hate the ads for ringtones too...every ad break on MTV there are at least 4 of them forphuxake.

Click to expand...

in Germany, that is ALL the ads ever are.


seriously, there is 2 music video filmclips followed by at least 5 minutes worth of mobile phone ringtone advertisements and they are repeated after every 2 filmclips.


its SO ANNOYING!!

yeah i totally agree about those ads, i think if you flashed between those music channels you could watch those ads like 24-7.
mmmmm cable ringtone ad tv

Advertising is the katylist (sp?) of most evils (unless it's for something good and worthwhile) but that's all i'm saying on the topic because whenever i say anything about consumer whores and commercilisation theres a bunch of people who always jump up and down and me and say that i'm just trying to be alternate or some shit like that pfffttttttt

catalyst?

oh please! Advertising affects you subconsciously? Advertising is the catalyst for evil?? HAHAHHAHAHHA you guys make me laugh.

Seriously, that's like saying drugs CAUSE people to do bad things. Hundeds of tests have been done in this field and not one has brought up a scrap of evidence that advertising causes subconscious reactions.

The only thing that CAUSES anyone to do something is their weak personality...

(Personally, I love communications. It's interesting to see how it's evolved over time and adapted to changing society etc)