Really? If I buy a car magazine I buy it for the content not for the ads. I assume that there is at least some useful information in the articles and if I want to buy a car, I also go rather for the content in the articles (tests, introductions of new cars with pros and cons) then for the ads which are all pro, hyping and probably also misleading.
Ads are useful to my readers because they don't have unlimited time to research 10,000 types of side chairs for use in their office projects. If they see a chair they like in an ad, they'll meet with a furniture dealer to check it out, and then maybe use it in a future project.
How is that bad?
Many people like advertisements though - just pick up a September issue of Vogue and you'll see over 500 pages of a 900 page magazine filled with ads. And people go out of their way to buy it because they love the ads.
But isn't it you job to have those pictures as part of your content? It's not like the ads have these 10000 types also. They also have only a few. Sometimes an ad even takes 2 pages for one item because they payed more. In the worst case the ad is misleading telling you: "this is the best chair for your because it has XY" and even if you don't belive it in the first place (which is self-evident already. You just don't belive what they tell you because everyone has the same claim of truth. Think about it: we got used to it!) but at the point where you make a decision, maybe far in the future, some subconcious connections that have been manipulated by the ad make you chose the product. This is actually what advertisers aim for. I see it as ethicaly wrong and I'm really sad that you can't see my point of difference between content and avertisment.
@vogue: My girfriend reads those magazines also. But she is always annoyed of the ads and the ad manipulated content. Some of these have at least ads you can take out and throw away, which she does also. She does not read the magazines because of the ads but because of the name of the magazine as well as the content (which is why she stoped reading the german Cosmopolitan for excample. The content became the ad in a way it became unreadable for her).
I've never ever heard somebody say: I buy/watch this product because I like the ads. I really doubt there is a relevant ammount of people who do this...
I don't know in which country you live but the trailers are only a minimal part of the pre-movie show. Most of it is again ads. Ads I don't enjoy at all. Nobody in the cinema does. Thats why people are still talking and not paying attention to what is on screen.
I don't even enjoy the trailers anymore because I've seen them all already on the Internet. I don't need them. Thats why I do something I can't do with a newspaper for example: I come into the room 30minutes later. When the actual product I've payed for is being aired.
This is a luxus I don't have with newspapers, on my company computer surfing the Internet, on the street,... My brain is being attacked by those unwanted information that has been tailored to hook onto certain mechanics within my unconscious mind I can't control. It manipulates me in a way I can't do anything about it.
And it is even worse: they also lie to me. I would never rely on this information because I know there is another player on the same market claiming the same things for their product. Why should I believe them? How should a lie be useful to me? I just can't see it.
I also don't recall a single situation where an ad showed me a new product I've never heard of and was interested in. I just can't. Maybe I'm to informed but I doubt it. I asked my girlfriend. She's not even close to that nerdy as I am. She also never did that. You think that might be an coincidence?
What was your last product you did not hear about before and bought after seeing an ad?
> What was your last product you did not hear about before and bought after seeing an ad?
Probably buy something each week that I saw previously advertised somewhere.
The last thing was probably some pig electric fencing that was advertised in a pig magazine last week.
You're an outlier. Perhaps you're just so determined to be against advertising you can't see the value in it.
Without advertising, how would we know what products exist?
So now it is me just because you seem to be a indifferent consumer with to much money?
I don't know anybody behaving like you described so I can't be an outlier. At least not where I live.
Too bad you decided against continuing the discussion based on the reasons I presented but I guess this is what keeps the show running. Good luck with that.
You can still be an outlier in terms of the population as a whole. With all due respect, perhaps you're in a bubble.
Do you watch American Idol? Do you read celebrity gossip magazines? Do you play bingo or the lottery? Do you watch Fox news? Do you buy a newspaper? Do you click on ads?
Millions and millions of people do all of the above - they are not outliers.
On your previous point "How should a lie be useful to me? I just can't see it.", we have this problem all the time outside of advertising with general information. Look at the average news story on Reddit. It's probably biased, probably a half truth, probably out of context, probably only half the facts of the story. Everything is biased and needs careful inspection before you can take it at face value.
However, there are obvious ways to do this. For example, I "trust" Lego. That means if they advertise a new awesome Batman Lego Arkham Asylum set, I'll know it's going to be quality, and awesome, and I'll buy it. If however it's some new unheard of company, I'd probably want to go examine it in a toy shop before I buy it.
I'm not trying to convince you that advertising is useful, I don't think you'll change your mind. But hopefully you'll see that you're not in a majority, and the majority think advertising is useful.
How are the ads useful to you?