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[–]HopeThatHalps 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I mean, they paid for the ad space. Someone owns the space, money changes hands. Then there are laws about what can and can't be advertised. Advertising is not quite as one sided as this makes it out to be.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

People working in marketing are probably experts in psychology or know how to influence people. We the people are neither experts nor are we aware of how we can be influenced. What we are, is, victims of psychological manipulation. The only control people have is to close their ears and or eyes when an ad is encountered, assuming the people are aware that the ad could potentially manipulate them.

Laws are not the same as ethics. There was a time a lot of things were legal which we now consider illegal; slavery was legal, genocide was legal. Just because something is legal, it does not mean it is right or ethical. I know that what we have now cannot be easily compared with genocide or slavery or rape or whatever but, it still is a big deal.

If we want to talk about making the money change hands, we need to find a better way than getting into people's heads and making their lives miserable.

[–]HopeThatHalps 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The sad fact is, if something is unethical, but legal, you are free to do it. It might be a basis for a boycott, but boycotting advertising would be absurdly difficult. I think we also have to acknowledge how effective advertising is towards commerce. There is the pessimistic view that it's manipulative, but it is genuinely informative, too, and the economy literally collapse if advertising was ended all together. Some business models, like google, are based entirely on adverstiting. You would have to pay for your search engines and free email accounts. TV and radio wouldn't exist.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You are right, banning things is not always the answer. What we need is to educate common people. For instance, we don't have to ban advertisements despite the paradigm that they are manipulative; we have to teach people to acknowledge that advertisements can manipulate them and teach them not to let advertisements mess with their heads too much.

This could render the advertisements useless because their very purpose is to "convince" people to like the product but, we have to try to make the best situation possible where there is minimum or no harm coming to either party.

[–]HopeThatHalps 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

we have to teach people to acknowledge that advertisements can manipulate them

That's a good start, but since advertising works on the subconscious, that might not make much of a difference. I think more research has to be done with regard to deciding that ads are a public health nuisance. Any solution we come up with now would be based around a limited understanding of how it psychologically effects people, because like a lot of what we know, succesful advertising comes from trial and error rather than a deeper understanding of how it works. It would touch on "thought crime".