But what can we do? It just feels like the thought that we could easily abolish advertising in public spaces, if we wanted, doesn't even occur to anyone. Some considerations:<p>- Governments (state as well as municipality) like having some inescapable public ad space, because they use it too, for announcements and such. Solution: decouple commercial advertising and government announcements.<p>- "But how will people find out about new products?" - yes, I've heard people say this without any irony, maybe nowadays we can respond that people are on their phones all the time so they can still see ads there. Some opt-in advertising solution (like jokoon is describing) could be an alternative as well.<p>- "What about store signage and shop windows?" - I think these shouldn't be included in an outdoor advertising ban, however advertisers are sure to try and muddy the waters here to get small businesses on their side, so it would be wise to emphasize this from the start.<p>- "I like ads, some of them look nice" - replace billboards with trees, art, the sky...<p>- "What about the revenue the city gets from advertising space?" - The most hairy and perhaps most important point. I would like to make explicit all the implicit exchanges of value involved in advertising, but it might be too abstract for the average Joe. Someone pays the city to show me something. That means the ability to show it to me is worth more to them than what they pay the city. It also means that at the end of the day, the money is somehow coming from me, and this amount could be larger than what the city gets out of it, even. Therefore I would actually save money if the city abolished advertising and just raised taxes a little. Of course there is the false consciousness that many people have, "<i>I</i> don't get influenced by ads".<p>- Negative psychological effects of advertising, the basic human right to not have to look at something designed to manipulate you. I feel this on a deep level but you quickly start sounding like a crazy person if you explain it to someone who doesn't really get this. Maybe an alternative would be to refer to objective studies relating advertising and wellbeing.
The point about escalators in subways being designed for marketing exposure resonates with me. More and more I walk around and see advertisements everywhere; they seem to be becoming inescapable in our modern cities. I block them on my devices, but I can't remove them from my vision.
I genuinely believe that one could make an app where users just knowingly and willingly browse ads that are proposed and tailored to them, based on interests they decide to share or choose. Like an ad store.<p>One would think "but you're talking about Instagram".<p>No, users would actually be able to choose the ads, and posters would always be required to pay a minimum amount per ad. The users could like or dislike the ads and never gain anything by watching ads, to avoid bot accounts.<p>Generally the goal would be to have an honest advertising system where users don't feel harassed by ads, since they would consent to not watch them and decide what to watch.<p>When I think hard I'm still describing Instagram. But it seems advertising will always have a bad reputation of harassing users. This might change, but it still seems like an impossible problem as long as it's immoral to gather user data.
I know it's silly at this point, but the idea of neuralink and "marketing" creeps me out in a whole new way.<p>There are uncomfortably blurry lines between marketing, recommendation engines and NN systems that will probably be core systems.<p>With the current FB, Youtube, Etc... it's hard to really define where marketing begins and ends. As content recommendation and ad serving engines collaborate and converge...
What's really weird in Western society is that we have to outsource some useful jobs (like actually making things) to other countries and reluctantly keep others (like caring for the sick or cooking food) in a low paid limbo so that educated people can engage in useless and still not at all rewarding or at least fun activities.
"What if marketers can build an infinite shithole of ads inside the virtual world instead of the physical? Wait, hold on a second..."<p>this makes me glad for add blockers, VPNs, TOR, Canvas manipulators, piholes, and such. Sitting in front of a friends TV for a coffee and the amount of advertising from the moment she turns her TV on (the damn thing has adverts on its menu bar...) and then the sprawling chaos of attention grabbers from free to air tv and finally youtube itself. Thankfully I saw the recently uploaded and monetised video her sister put on line including its 5 seconds of advertising at the start and 15 seconds of unskippable advertising 25 seconds before the video finished.<p>I have no regrets for my ignorance
Perfect HTML block requesting me to subscribe right after this:<p>> Once you're through the ads jungle, you enter the content maze. Many things you read, watch or listen are designed to sell you something (subscribe, by the way, and leave a comment). The aim is to get more sales, a bigger audience, more clicks, more money, more attention.
Marketing is the current dominating religion.<p>Traditional religions promise us a blessing in our life (or cursing our enemies and wrongdoers) or a good afterlife.<p>Political ideologies promise us heaven on earth.<p>Marketing promises us a better life, more joy, better social status (as discussed in the blog post). Even more - temples used to be the most central and well-kept building for cities; now, there are shopping malls. For some, e.g. Apple store, the resemblance is intentional. Similarly, when it comes to the festival - it does not matter what you believe in for Xmas. It matters if you <i>buy</i> gifts.
<i>The evilest inventions of the XXI century are not “better” guns, bombs, […] The cruellest and the most inhuman creations are infinite scroll and push-notifications.</i><p>Comparing push notifications to the human toll inflicted by guns and bombs is asinine beyond belief.<p>In the grand scheme of things, nobody gives a shit that someone had the audacity to try and distract you. It’s not super important.
"Did you know that marketers lobbied for underground design and architecture? Long labyrinths and slow escalators allow marketers to exhibit hundreds of hypnotising billboards." I did not. Are there any evidences for this? Tried google something but found nothing.<p>Marketers must be really powerful if they can affect the way underground stations are designed, I thought design is done to be as cheap as possible, since digging all those tunnels is expensive anyway, so making it even more expensive by digging some more tunnels to make them longer sounds indeed horribly.<p>Next:<p>"Angel is the station with the longest escalator in London. The vertical rise is 27.5 meters and the total length is 61 meters, making it 3rd longest in Europe. Flashing pictures don't bring me joy but the long escalator reminds me of the time when I was living in St. Petersburg. The average underground escalator in there is deeper and longer than the average escalator in London, and probably anywhere else. "<p>Ok, so marketers were so powerful also in Soviet Union, as most of the Underground was built then. This gets really interesting. I would never say communists fell into ads tech stuff too.<p>There are obvious shortcomings of ads tech, like intrusive tracking, gathering information that can be used against people (to sell them products for a higher price, refuse job, renting flat, selling insurance, etc.). But article is not mentioning that, only the fact that "ads are selling a dream".<p>Well, they are, believe or not, on the markets of ancient Rome, Babylon or Cuzco sellers were also selling the dream of having the tastiest vegetables, the most durable pots, the best spears and daggers.
This is so nicely written, good job.<p>It's a topic that captivates me every couple of months, most recently I've been interested in the power of YouTube's recommendation system. If you show interest in a topic you're slowly guided into more videos on the topic, to the point where you're more likely to buy items surrounding the topic you have become interested in. Then eventually the recommendations change, your interest in that topic weans and you're on to your next interest. It's a cycle that's easy to fall into and easy to break if you notice, but how many people don't notice?
I don't really understand the point about dreams. Do they sell you dreams? What kind of dreams? I see ads for products and services, most of which do not resonate with me at all. I have my own dreams, and I don't see them having anything to do with marketing.
I'm frustrated that every gas station seems to have ad-riddled gas pumps now. Sure, there might be some low-quality content clips, or ads for the station's convenience store, but that doesn't really help matters.<p>And the noise...which generally is not mutable
For those wanting to read a detailed breakdown on underground advertising in London:<p><a href="https://www.promo-media.co.uk/type-of-ads/underground/" rel="nofollow">https://www.promo-media.co.uk/type-of-ads/underground/</a>
Black Mirror episode Fifteen Million Merits.
<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits</a>