In Defense of Advertising

After my yesterday's post re ads on blogs, Biz consultant: Rick E. Bruner: "Moreover, I honestly do believe ads play a worthy role in the consumer's decision process. Customers are increasingly savvy enough to see through most of the "trickery, slight of hand, bending the truth." "

If one works in sales/marketing/advertising, one knows that's not true. Some are, most aren't. That's why we have, in this country, The Advertising Standards Authority, and Trading Standards, where one can complain to.

He goes on: Give them a little credit.

No! Punters are stupid! If you buy from an ad, without checking from friends, or others, then you are stupid, and deserve to be burnt. This is why I think, and hope that one day, ads will cease to exist, utopian it may be. I get interested by what others say about a product, more, much more, than by the seller's sales pitch. Recommendation is far superior than direct marketing, and blogs and other FOAF/social networks will boost this. Sure, ads will always go where there's eye balls, but they'll become less and less important to the sales process.

And: In fact, where I see the industry going in the future is increasingly towards what I refer to as "invertising" -- ads that consumers seek out and opt to see, such as "advertainment" and "edutainment" (the ads on TiVo that people opt not to skip), search ads that correspond to users seeking out information, opt-in email retention programs, Ultramercials (e.g., Salon's free-pass for premium content in exchange for impactive ads), and so on.

Rick, my old mate, my old mucker, you live in a differnet world from me. MacDonalds does these things, damn, the kids like the place too much. Their quizzes, colouring in things, toys etc... I see through it, my kids don't and that pisses me off. Ads go for the lowest common denominator, the biggest bang for buck, if the business owner can get away with less and get more, they will.

Blogs don't survive like that.

1086 Also posted to: cyberSaps . At: 4:50:46 PM  . .
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