[sdegutis]

> As ironically stated here, "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

Thanks. Perfectly succinct summary of what I hate so much about today's business world.

Dear all advertisers: how about you stop trying to figure out how to make people want your product/service more, and focus on making it discoverable and clearly understood when the time comes where they finally realize they do want such a product/service and go seeking it out from someone? And if they never do end up wanting it, MAYBE THAT'S FINE and maybe it's time you stop selling it?

[grok2]

As I was reading your comment, I was thinking - "Why not? Why shouldn't advertisers figure out how to advertise in ways that comes somewhat close to what you are suggesting, but make you want to buy before you know you want something?" ;-)...

Sometimes I think we are in a difficult dichotomy -- we like Twitter and we consume it voraciously and love that it is free, but we don't want them to use advertising as a source of revenue even though that might be the source that keeps it alive for us to consume. And, for free!

[sdegutis]

For sure, we're a greedy, selfish, and short-sighted species. But that doesn't make the advertisers right for doing what people are implicitly asking them to.

[true_religion]

People say 'the advertisers', but don't most people in the world work for a company that uses ads?

It seems that there's a mentality of compartmentalization, where people believe there to be 'evil ad companies' that somehow do nothing but make ads and don't actually sell products, nor employ people in the creative industry.

[lmm]

> People say 'the advertisers', but don't most people in the world work for a company that uses ads?

I don't think so? 90% of businesses sell to businesses, not to consumers, and in that world it's more about networking than advertising. (You could argue that that's just another form of advertising, but at the very least it's easier to avoid).

[sdegutis]

Just a crazy idea, but what if instead of TV/radio commercials and billboards and internet popup ads, products advertised themselves in the places they are sold (e.g. the sign next to a restaurant, or the side of a shampoo bottle on a shelf in the store), to explain very briefly why they're better than the competition? Most of the time, people will come across it organically, and that's healthy and good. But if discoverability is needed too, they can advertise in appropriate places, like restaurant listings, etc.

[icebraining]

One of the buzzwords a few years back was the "intention economy"; the idea is that you wouldn't have ads, instead you'd have a kind of automated RFP process in which consumers would say what they want and sellers would reply with offers that matched the request.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_economy

[niftich]

Like a reverse auction or call for tenders?

[niftich]

There's a difference between advertising and branding, although sometimes they blur together.

In brief, advertising is trying to get you to buy a specific product, whereas branding is about mindshare. When Coca-Cola runs TV commercials, you're seeing branding, and you're associating Coca-Cola with energetic, smiling people living life to the fullest and all that good stuff.

Advertising, however, has a clearer call-to-action. In the US, car commercials seamlessly combine the two where they show people like actor Matthew McConaughey driving a Lincoln, and you think 'wow, successful people drive Lincolns' -- branding -- and at the end, they show current offers for leasing the car for 36 months -- advertising. What you propose actually happens in grocery stores today: sales. The rotating sales are a way to gauge market loyalty to a particular brand not currently on sale, vs. the other brand currently on sale.

[blahi]

People like to feel righteous and superior. Whether they deserve to feel this way is an entirely different story.

[Analemma_]

I don't know if advertisers are the villains here, or at least they're not the only ones. People want things that are expensive to run and maintain (journalism, social networking services, accurate internet search), but don't want to pay for them. AFAIK, advertising is the only way to square that circle.

[ams6110]

Because when they do want it, there will be several competitors offering it and from experience I know they will most likely choose the name they recognize from my prior brand awareness campaigns, and do little other research.

[niftich]

In even further irony, in this particular case, they're one and the same.