> The entire point of advertising is manipulating human beings.

That's quite cynical. No the point is to connect products to interested consumers. Case in point: we recently had a baby so I've been googling for baby stuff. Now I get some ads for more baby stuff. It's relevant to my life far more than Viagra ads or whatever other generic ads could be shown to me. It's not exactly manipulation because I do need lots of baby stuff.

I think an important part of your statement is “interested consumers”. A consumer who is not interested should not have to be bombarded with advertisements. At this point (making someone do something they do not want to), is where it becomes manipulation.

For instance, I have no interest in receiving snail-mail ads for credit cards. I am happy with the ones that I have right now, and regularly research on my own via trusted third parties to see if any are available which would be of interest to me. Still, I am unable to stop receiving mail advertising credit cards to me. There is not even recourse I can take because states have fallen for the same “connecting producers to consumers” argument as above, in the most broad sense, where every human is a potentially interested consumer for every single product.

The business is worse off (because they pay to advertise to me, and I will not get one of their credit cards), I am worse off (because I am upset I receive this mail), the planet is worse off (deforestation), others are worse off (perhaps the time spent by postal workers delivering me junk mail could improve service to others or reduce costs).

So while I agree that advertising is not inherently manipulative, when the audience is captive and uninterested, it becomes manipulation.

"making someone do something"? what kind of ad does that describe?

What's the line between "were making someone do something" and "We have an army of psychologists hard at work to convince someone they need to do something"? Is that line different when it's directed to a 14 year old? Or a senior citizen? Or someone you know is likely a addict of what you're selling?

Any ad that is sent to a person does not want to see it, in an intrusive way such that they cannot avoid it. The “something” is “looking at it.”

Captive? At what point does personal accountability matter? Everyone's choosing to be there and look at this stuff.

It matters at the point when an individual is accountable for having seen the ad. There are countless situations where you cannot possibly perform any normal function of life (shy of sitting in the house and having someone else do all interaction with the outside world):

- Billboards. You cannot possibly keep these out of your peripheral (or center of) vision while driving without endangering everyone else on the road. - Mailed advertisements. You have to check your mail, for example, for legal summons, that you are required by law to respond to. - Public transit (lest I be auto-shamed). You cannot, where I am, even look toward where a train arrives, without seeing ads.

To remediate just these three advertising venues, you have to drive and board public transit with your eyes closed and not check your mail. These aren’t even activities I’d consider voluntary - people need to get to work to support themselves, and check their mail for legal purposes. Unless your argument is that we all make choices to participate in our sovereign nation’s legal structure and to have jobs that require leaving the home (not everyone can work in a cushy remote role).

Psychological manipulation is a thing. People write dissertations on this stuff. These people are then hired by advertising companies. Often the people they target are children or adolescents.

Deodorant became popular after advertisements started emotionally negging people by implying that they were stinky and everybody around them were laughing behind their back.

Connecting products to interested customers often involve manipulating the customer into being interested. Think about sugary cereals targeted at kids with songs and colors.

As usual with matters of opinion, there is a positive and negative way to frame everything. You framed the negative. Allow me to frame the positive:

The human condition has been improved now that we all spend $3/mo on deodorant.

Is emotional manipulation a good thing if it has positive outcomes? What about torture, is torture with positive outcomes a good thing for society? Why stop there, what about killing people without a trial, if we can find enough positive outcomes?

You highlighted an important point: ads only frame one side of the story.

If you want the full story, look elsewhere.

Imagine a world where, if interested in baby stuff, you paid money for articles on baby stuff, and advertisers knew to buy pages of ads among those articles; or if you watched TV shows about people doing baby stuff, advertisers knew to bookend those shows with baby stuff?

Research shows contextual advertising (the way it was done for ever before retargeting became a thing) beats retargeting for both purchases per dollar of ad spend and consumer appreciation / satisfaction (versus annoyance).

I'm reminded of the time when I bought BYTE magazine, and when holding it sideways a huge pile of ads fell out of it.

But, yes, you are right. Even this was infinitely better than the current situation with ads.

I've purchased a handful of things that I have scoured the internet for hours and couldn't find because they later came up in an ad randomly. I am extremely satisfied with the products. In fact, the only thing I'm not satisfied about is how much time I've spent fruitlessly which shows search is still an unsolved problem.

That something has some positive utility does not justify all negative consequences.

For instance installing publicly accessible cameras in all rooms in all homes would help reduce domestic abuse, however that obviously does not mean it's a net social good. In the same vein helpful target ads do not make up for all of the other shenanigans in manipulating people politically.

You sound like a perfect candidate for Facebook's new and revolutionary suppository microphone, which analyzes your outputs to more effectively target your interests. Think of the time you would save!

You should opt-in then to the silo where we will put all ads after we ban them from public view.

Fun fact: the original word used for 'advertising' was 'propaganda', and advertising uses several propaganda techniques. There's nothing cynical about that, it's just a fact.

Interesting. Propoganda was also the term used by the Public Relations industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda#Public_perceptions

> > The entire point of advertising is manipulating human beings.

> No the point is to connect products to interested consumers.

You're both right in identifying points of advertising, and they're not in conflict.

Advertising has _two_ points, which I phrase as:

1. Increasing consumer awareness

2. Increasing consumer demand

Increasing consumer awareness generally feels useful: that's finding out what baby products exist, or showing people a new invention or service.

Increasing consumer demand generally feels manipulative: that's showing sugary cereals and crap toys to children, or associating vaping with success, etc.

The two goals usually are working together — but I find it useful to separate which parts of the advertisement are doing what.

Counterpoint: what makes you think you need lots of baby stuff?

Well, we have relatively little baby stuff compared to some parents, it's still enough though. Some monitoring tech, stroller, car seat, bassinet, diapers, clothing, some early age books to help develop eyesight (supposedly), plus bath stuff.

I guess we could raise him in a cardboard box, bathe him in the sink and not have half this shit that's really for our convenience, but it is all convenient. We're definitely not going that crazy compared to the typical American/Canadian parent...

Wouldn't you prefer to realize you need something, and then you actively go and get it? I don't want to be manipulated into thinking I need something subconsciously just because I've seen it a bunch of times.

It depends. Sometimes you don't know that a solution exists for your problem.

I think it would be more healthy for your kid if you talked to other parents (and not just for finding solutions to problems).

It is a huge conflict of interest "learning" of a solution to a problem from an ad who's express purpose is to get you to buy it. I agree with the sibling comment; fixing problems is fine but do it from something trustworthy, not the company with the biggest advertising pocketbook.

Interestingly most babies in Finland have a cardboard box as their first bed.

It is manipulation of you, towards specific product, within domain you look for. So you and your subconsciousness are outright attacked to buy product whose manufacturer paid the most, regardless of actual quality.

(ie we also buy baby stuff but sure as hell the best products are not ie 'pampers' which are in every freaking ad block on TV I ever saw, probably... same for thousand other household products, advertised ones are very rarely proper high quality within their category, since so much is spent on pushing them down everybody's throat).

I can't comprehend how otherwise smart folks can't grok this basic principle of advertising, its pure logic and simple follow-the-money principle. Its fight for your wallet, and your brain controls the wallet. Maybe it doesn't insult your intelligence to be manipulated like a sheep, but it sure does mine.

I think the field of advertising successfully whitewashes its own public image as innocent and neutral, "connecting products to interested consumers". It's the same as in politics, religion, finance, insurance, and other kinds of mass fraud and racketeering - hypnotizing people with smoke and mirrors, make belief, a theatrical performance. It's insidious and sneaky how it masquerades as normal, how entire individual lived experiences are spent in manufactured illusion, a system of exploiting human beings through psychological manipulation, and extracting value.

The problem is that advertising never gives you balanced information.

You would be better served by talking to other parents, by reading information from consumer organizations, by reading reviews, even by talking to shop personnel (where multiple brands are sold).

Targeted ads is why we see an explosions in new companies. With traditional marketing, new companies had no way to reach an audience effectively. You could start a company but couldn’t build a customer base. With targeted advertising, it gave us things like free trading with Robinhood that leveraged targeted ads to buy installs. It gave us a bunch of new banking options that offer zero fees. It gave us new clothing brands, razors, workout equipment, cosmetics and washable rugs.

Killing targeted ads will just mean the incumbents will dominate and without competition, consumer prices will rise. Gillette did their first price reduction because of dollar shave club is an example.

You seem to say that as if it were the only way to build an audience. There have been disruptors and innovators out there long before targeted advertising became a thing.

Targeted ads gave us none of the things you mentioned, it merely gave them highly-effective ad targeting. But a company can still buy TV ad spots, they can still spread via word-of-mouth or grassroots campaigns, they can still hire people to canvas and pitch, nowadays they can still go viral.

I agree with GP that ads are manipulation, and that we cannot give ad people (or any people, really) tools that are too good in this area.

Literally every big company in existence today started small, disrupting or innovating or just effectively competing at something. Yet somehow they managed to become what they are without targeted advertising?

You can have targeted ads without user tracking. E.g. you can show job openings on a website where hackers meet.

User tracking is absolutely despicable and must be killed.

RobinHood didn't use targeted ads. That should blow a hole in your thesis.

Okay, I'm sure they used some of them as well, but that was not their primary advertising mechanic to get the first 1,000,000 signups.

> The entire point of advertising is manipulating human beings

The entire point of your comment is manipulating human beings.

Advertising often just seeks to make a consumer aware of a certain product. If that is manipulation, so is pretty much any content that seeks to change what people know.

I think the difference is in what the two are trying to manipulate you to do.

His comment is trying to manipulate the reader into believing something that he believes is better for mankind. He doesn't materially benefit, and the reader doesn't lose anything.

Ads and advertisers are not trying to manipulate the viewers into buying a product. They are manipulating viewers into becoming the type of person that buys products impulsively and with little research. The product of the advertiser is not an ad; the product of the advertiser is you. This is not to your benefit.

So, trying to reduce gp's comment and ads in general to equivalence is misguided imo.

What if an advertiser truly believes in their product and thinks it will better mankind? What if they've done a bunch of research into the product and theirs is actually the best on the market? I think the two are closer than you'd like to admit.

That's not really how things work in a modern context. Today we have to distinguish between the people making the stuff, who really may "believe" in their product, and the people advertising those same products, who don't care, and who aren't the ones creating anything of value.

As a shoemaker, you might think your shoe is the best shoe on the market. Google doesn't care which is the best shoe. Google simply sells a product, namely, a credulous audience, to the shoemakers, who want buyers. And their ecosystem is bent toward improving that product. The shoemakers' noble ends don't justify the evil means of the advertisers.

This is kinda what I take the old adage to mean, "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product." You might think that Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc. are free services because they don't cost you money. But that's like saying that a stay at the butcher's is free for the cow. They're not free at all; advertisers have to pay good money for access to their product, which is you.

Or so my view goes :) I could be wrong though.

Most companies brainwash themselves into thinking they are making the world a better place.

Selling snake oil becomes no more socially good when the salesman deludes themself into believing the pitch.

Most people brainwash themselves into thinking their opinions are right and others' are wrong.

Yeah. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

What is your definition of "a better place"?

The vast majority of products people buy help them solve problems of all kinds. An economic transaction is a win-win for both buyers and sellers. Look at products like the computer, the car, the telephone, etc. I think the world is becoming a better place as a result.

Silicon Valley had a great bit about this kind of thinking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8C5sjjhsso

> Advertising often just seeks to make a consumer aware of a certain product.

It wants to get me to buy. Any stated aim less than this is a waste of their money.

I studied and worked in marketing for a little while before becoming disgusted by it and leaving. The vast, vast majority of ads have a primary goal of raising awareness, not triggering a purchase. It's extremely hard (and often ineffective) to trigger a purchase, unless the ad is seen while literally standing in front of the product at the store. The best marketing technique is to raise awareness of the product, so that when the user thinks about their own need, your brand/product is the one they think of as a solution.

Perhaps a consumer who is aware of a product is more likely to buy it?

> The entire point of your comment is manipulating human beings.

The difference is in the intention for said manipulation. His comment isn’t trying to get us to part with our hard-earned income for ultimately frivolous goods.

What's frivolous about a wallet or a sweater? Ultimately, all your hard-earned income is to make your life easier via goods and services, some of which may be frivolous. If you can't trust yourself not to make all frivolous purchases, that's a problem you can try to solve on your own.

How many wallets or sweaters does one need? That is the reason I included the word "ultimately" in my comment

I'm not arguing we don't need to buy anything ever. I'm arguing most ads are either pushing stuff you don't really need 99% of the time or selling outright junk. And let's not get into how close some ads are to plainly false advertising (I'm looking at you, wellness / nutrition)

Sounds like you are experiencing poorly targeted ads if 99% of yours aren't things you need :)

Question. If your ads were perfectly targeted in that 100% of advertised products were something that you're interested in, is that not ideal? Isn't that what companies like Google and Facebook are trying to do? Wouldn't you be happier if you didn't get the Wellness / Nutrition / Viagra ads?

Interested isn't a synonym for need. If you are "interested" in junk food, ads for it aren't something to you "need."

Is there no such thing as a win-win? If the business makes money off of a sale and the consumer gets a product they actually wanted?

Or is the default mode of operation always the consumer losing and the business winning?

If I actually wanted the product, I probably didn’t need the ad. I just needed to know about it in a very factual manner

Hard disagree.

You may want a THING, but you don't know about a particular brand or style of said THING. Just by making you aware of them can be a win win.

Say you've been researching "THINGS" for a couple weeks and narrowed it down to 2 brands. An Ad pops for a brand you'd never heard of. Naturally you check it out, only to find out its better than either of the options you were previously considering.

I trust myself to find better products than what random ads will suggest. In my experience, that holds true. I hardly ever purchase anything from "new" brands except for niche products but ofc YMMV

There's so much noise online now, ads are necessity for me to eventually find something I like.

As an example, a couple of months ago I was searching for some new summer outfits. Went through Google, Reddit, various clothing blogs, catalogs, etc. but didn't find a lot that I liked. After a week more of targeted ads on Instagram, I was finally able to discover brands that fit my tastes.

Unless I'm buying something well-defined like a TV or Airpods, passive exposure via targeted ads has been one of the best ways for me to find something worth purchasing.

Sometimes ads do that. I recently had a purchase that I got a lot of value off of based on an Instagram ad to my partner. I would not have known about the product otherwise.

The issue is "sometimes" probably amounts to ~1% of the time, based on my made up anecdotal observations.

"frivolous goods"

Sure, if the good or service is actually frivolous, but what about the case where the human is actively searching for some good or service that offer some actual value?

> Advertising often just seeks to make a consumer aware of a certain product. If that is manipulation, so is pretty much any content that seeks to change what people know.

That's what advertising used to do before tracking was a thing. When this was introduced the industry realized that targeting and manipulation is far more profitable and this made ad campaigns that don't do this unviable. Because nobody ever wants to go back to a lower profit margin.

PS Not sure why I get 0 points here :) I have it on good authority from some webmasters that were trying to offer non-tracked ads that advertisers simply don't want them anymore.

They're so addicted to tracking, and 'retargeting' (meaning repeat ads) that they're just not paying for untracked anymore. Not nearly enough to make an ad-supported website work anyway.

Due to GDPR and the cookie ban, things are turning in Europe though. Because now they no longer have the choice.

"Advertising often just seeks to make a consumer aware of a certain product."

And this is why shiny new product is often placed along a half naked beatiful women or alike? Sex sells?

Some marketing indeed exists, that just tries to make a consumer aware of a product. But most marketing campaigns try to associate a certain product with certain attractive person/livestyle/object.

The Malboro Man, the Taste of freedom. Etc.

It is highly manipulative to its core. And with targeted ads, you can play with the target persons fears and desires in a automated way. So far this likely not happening (very well), but the potential is very real and dark.

> And this is why shiny new product is often placed along a half naked beatiful women or alike? Sex sells?

If anything, this was more common in the pre-internet advertising age. Can't remember the last time I saw an ad like this.

It is still totally a thing, it just takes effort to notice it, since it is so common. Also there is still nondigital advertisement.

I disagree. Manipulate is not only loaded, but it is the wrong word.

Ads attempt to persuade. They can be implemented in manipulative ways, but ads aren't inherently that IMO.

By that logic you prefer random recommendations over personalized ones which means listening to the radio and TV over Netflix and Spotify