[cowile2]

Exactly. Good ads are a service to me that inform me of things I want to buy. They aren't tricking me into buying stuff. Sometimes I see an ad and immediately believe the product would improve my life and it does.

I think the problem with HN/Engineer types is they basically never see ads designed to appeal to them because they aren't a large enough audience.

[dormento]

I always thought of ads as "something that informs me about the things I should want", and that the point of the entire "discipline" or marketing was to "create desire".