12apr26 V.13 this will be evolving regularly. If you want to engage in the debate please post comments on my Twitter account @wpoel
"advertising is super highway robbery" invokes the now little used expression "super highway", derived from the term "information super highway" that marked a point at which the internet took off to become the predominant medium of information exchange across the planet. (Remember Al Gore anyone? He used his box seat to make a fortune from climate hoaxing when scaring us all about drowning polar bears.
But anyway, we really need to fix the advertising industry and make it less of an unwanted intruder in our lives.
But anyway, we really need to fix the advertising industry and make it less of an unwanted intruder in our lives.
Starting with the fundamentals: all media exists to connect advertisers with audiences - and in the case of TV especially, it exists to connect eager sellers to indifferent buyers frequently through the device of creating fantasy scenarios that suggest a certain product or service will provide unrealistic benefits in the lives of purchasers.
A vast and complex industry is built around this simple proposition which employs considerable psychology to try and influence - and now requires extensive regulation to avoid abuse by unscrupulous marketing companies.
The ability to select audience by specificinterest and other increasingly granular profiling has changed the game immeasurably from one that was only able to select audience based on time of day and surrounding context, to one where the advert tracking industry knows your shoe size and where you last bought your lunch. Moreover, it is well aware of what you would like to buy next - possibly even before you do. It certainly knows far more about your current psychological profile then your parents.
There was once an interesting proposition that shoe size and type plus top 5 music track choice wsa a complete demographic profile. Think about it!
With rare exceptions all analysis of TV advertising shows that viewers would far rather switch away and not watch it where there is an option to do so. In fact, they will begrudgingly pay to opt out, hence subscription TV.
The video recorder was eagerly used by viewers to time-offset so that commercials can be skipped. Broadcasters and advertisers really hate this evidence that their profession is not just worthless, but actively despised as far as the audience is concerned.
And when online streaming began to replace video recorders, the first thing that "they" did was to prevent viewers from skipping ad breaks. Again proving that adverts are reviled.
On a TV service like Freeview, the broadcasters synchronise the timing of advert breaks so that viewers can't switch to avoid commercial breaks.
TV advertising seems fundamentally broken in terms of customer satisfaction, yet such is the delusion of the marketing industry that it has always managed to kid itself that people enjoy watching commercials.
No they don't!
Somebody once observed that of all human endeavours, chess and advertising consumed the most concentrated intellectual energy to achieve the least practical outcomes.
They were correct! And this means that the brainwashing power of adverising is channeled to fund content when the audience hates it? It's likely that we will be getting progressively subscription weary as economies tank. There has to be a better way to try and bring eager vendors together with eager consumers.
Much advertising walks the tightrope between downright misrepresentation and subtle coercion. Broadcasting and advertising watchdogs attempt to referee the situation to avoid the worse excesses, such as the deployment of specific subliminal persuasion.
There is a wonderful opportunity for the first person that can crack the conundrum and make advertising welcome - and no longer just an unwanted intruder that steals our attention when we would rather be watching interesting and informative "content" especially when we are paying for it - not the 10th rerun of a tedious commecial.
Could it start by sharing the revenues obtained from selling our attention to advertisers..?
Take a look at this trip down memory lane to review INCENTV... and TimefreeeTV
Could it start by sharing the revenues obtained from selling our attention to advertisers..?
Take a look at this trip down memory lane to review INCENTV... and TimefreeeTV
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