What if we made advertising illegal?(simone.org) |
What if we made advertising illegal?(simone.org) |
There are two problems:
1. Even for reputable firms, they don't know beforehand what works. As the famous quote goes, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” That was over a century ago, but it's still true.
2. There are a lot of disreputable advertisers. So many that you can easily miss that any sincere advertising exists. And even the reputable advertisers are forced to use tactics that they wouldn't use in an environment with less noise.
Banning all advertising is a baby/bathwater situation. I promise you that there is a baby in there, and you'd notice if we threw out that ocean-sized bathtub. And then you'd want to build up a new advertising mode... and you'd find it a challenge to do in a way that is simultaneously effective and fair.
I know people at a nearby Church also work hard to organise classical music concerts. They'll be disappointed when no-one show up because no-one knew about them.
Advertising is extremely important to a healthy, open society.
Forcing news of your existence on people who didn't ask though? Nah. That's just parasitism.
If they're looking up plumbers in the yellow pages, you won't encounter the existence of Drano.
Optimize pulls. Not pushes. Pushes are acts of force. Pulls are acts of grace. If you can't understand this, I'd say you're stuck in the Sinclairism of being impossible to get to understand due to your life or ambitions in some way being dependent on not understanding.
Research works. Has worked. Will continue to work. If we can put a check on rampant greed and coamp down on the tragedy of the commons that is the pollution of the modern web.