Rant on Rant

Well, I wanted to post a thread ranting about advertising, not advertising here on ATS, but advertising in general. I wanted to rant about advertisements taking over TV programs, product placement even within TV programs, crawlers, insets, embedded and the 10 billion other tactics advertisers use out of desperation to get their sacred product endorsement drilled into your skull. I wanted to post about advertisements one-upping each other, getting brighter, louder, more inescapable until they become a blinding, deafening, multi-media prison of hellish proportion. But alas, I cannot.

I wanted to waive my arms, jump up and down, about advertisements on every park bench, on every city bus, on every building, on every flat surface. I wanted to rant about advertisements on my phone, about flyers in my mailbox and about irregular sized advertising inserts in papers. I wanted to SCREAM about spam, flashing billboards, about how every Bowl game is now an advertisement, every sports venue/stadium is now a living breathing advertisement. But alas, I cannot.

I wanted to post about the future and where all this advertising is headed. I wanted to rant about the fact that certain advertisers have actively pursued using lasers to post advertisements on the Moon (to be seen from Earth), investigated placing advertisements on clouds in the sky. I wanted to rant about how in the future the human mind's bandwidth will be all but consumed by advertising, visual, aural, oral, psychological, subliminal, physical. About how every single human sense will be completely saturated and destroyed by advertising. About how there is no escape from it, about how you cannot turn it off...no matter how hard you try. But alas, I cannot.

I wanted to post a rant about all of these things, but alas, I cannot. I cannot because after some brief searches I find the topic has been covered already.

So, in the end, my rant is about the fact I can't rant about something, a rant about not being able to rant about a subject so offensive it is genuinely "rant-able", and there should be no boundaries limiting the amount of ranting this topic deserves. About how the simple fact this topic has already been ranted upon is upsetting...and worthy of a rant itself.

Respectfully,

/rant

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
So, essentially, you are ranting about the fact that somebody has already agreed with you.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Have you noticed once they pass laws requiring everyone to purchase xyz product, the commercials dry up?

What a novel approach.

Start up monopolies aside, can't wait for the implants that pipe ads directly into the brain… without a mute button.

Meanwhile, the mute button on my remote control still works….

***click***

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Advertising is legalised lying

H.G.Wells

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

There is a phrase which applies here:

There is nothing new under the Sun.

Trite perhaps, but also apt in this case!

a reply to: DISRAELI

Errr...something like that.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Indeed. However, I'm sure advertisers will figure out some new gimmick (under the sun), some new untapped orifice, to auger their desperate and never ending tsunami assault into every single neuron of our minds. Of this I am reasonably confident.

Good to see you, TrueBrit.

a reply to: DISRAELI

So, essentially, you are ranting about the fact that somebody has already agreed with you.

Brilliant.

adverts been same for years not much has changed OP - adverts in between the show and between shows.

a reply to: lSkrewloosel

Nothing has changed? Really?

From where you sit, right now, look around you; I'll bet there's an advertisement within arms reach of you right this second. Then just do a quick google search on pictures from 1940, 1950, 1960 and even into 1970. Look at those pictures and tell me you see the same level of advertising pressure you see now.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Indeed. However, I'm sure advertisers will figure out some new gimmick (under the sun), some new untapped orifice, to auger their desperate and never ending tsunami assault into every single neuron of our minds. Of this I am reasonably confident.

Repetition sells.

You'd think they'd stop saying the phrase "Its Freee!" so much. The sad fact is it works.

In 1950 people were excited to receive a phone call. How many people today answer the phone without first looking to see if they recognize the number because it might be a telemarketer?

In 1960 there was no Internet. Sure there were advertisements in the newspaper, but there were only 4-5 per page and they didn't change. Now load up a news website on the web; not only are there twice that number of ads, but they change about every two seconds. So now that same newspaper page from 1960 has not 4-5 ads, but 50-60 ads in the time it takes you to read what you came there to read.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

What's the betting that seats in planes, trains, taxi cabs, and rickshaws, will soon be adapted to send modulated pulses of electricity through your skin, to your brain that make you hungry, or doubt the quality of your attire, or think about a new car...

It will not be products themselves which are advertised, but entire market places. Ever thought about getting into property? Well, sit down at this café and while you sip your beverage of choice, let the seat cushion convince you that now is the time to invest. No images, no words, just direct stimulation of the brain by way of vague sensory impressions.

Anyone can purchase advertising space in order to put up whatever they want, including nothing at all. If you want to help the cause, rent a billboard or something, put up nothing at all, and help preserve our space from graffiti, corporate or otherwise.

Instant reject mode, the moment I hear "free", " buy one, get one" or ads in general.

You want to make sure I ignore your company or your product? Push your marketing on me.

I instantly go into pissed off, shut down mode, the moment I have an ad pushed in my face.

If I am interested in something, I will seek it out, and I will research it. I am more interested in what people that have used the product have to say, than in the lies spieled in ads.

I have gotten pretty good at spotting the faked reviews that some companies are paying people to lie and place around the internet.

Usually you the only time a person takes the time to write a review is when their experience was really awful or really good.

Reading the reviews will give you a pretty good idea of what is real and what is fake.

Almost all ads are fake. That is why I despise them.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Nothing has changed? Really?

From where you sit, right now, look around you; I'll bet there's an advertisement within arms reach of you right this second. Then just do a quick google search on pictures from 1940, 1950, 1960 and even into 1970. Look at those pictures and tell me you see the same level of advertising pressure you see now.

i get the fact they are there but i get the fact they are there because most sites are free and this is how they make money without having to charge us for it. i use ad blocker plus most of the time anyway, mainly because of pop ups rather than Adverts on sites.

if im looking at a music site and there are adverts, i just naturally look at the content i came to the site for. is it not just instinct to ignore things you have no interest in?

watch the south park trilogy on advertisements -pretty fun.

ok so adverts are everywhere, do they have an effect on me..no.., do they annoy me..no, can i go about my daily routine without clicking them and being brainwashed. yup.

a reply to: TheTory

You see, that's just it; it would never work. We can use a billboard here as a metaphor (it's as good as any).

In practice, some advertiser will just build a bigger, louder, brighter, 'billboard' right in front of it. And in front of that one...and in front of that one...ad nauseum.

And this is the principle upon which advertising is based. How many times can you cut a line segment in half? The answer: Infinity.

Case in point; TIVO. TIVO (or DVRs) caused an uproar; people could record programming and then play it back skipping ads instantaneously. A tidal wave of lobby groups tried to outlaw it, major production companies, TV stations, artists all screamed bloody murder about it. Never before had such a technology upset so many. Technologically speaking it wasn't a quantum leap, VCR's could accomplish the same thing...but with one BIG difference. With a VCR you never really "skipped" the commercials, just fast forwarded through them. So advertisers still got to stick their brand and their logo in your face. With TIVO it was different, the technology looks for the sub-audible tones marking the ends of advertisements in the base programming and skipped them altogether. The first TIVO technology came out with the capability to program in the skipping of advertisements, and TIVO was sued 16 ways from Sunday because of it. So as a concession they had to dumb the technology down forcing the user to skip each commercial individually. And THIS is why you now see two things happening...

First advertisers will post their logo first, just in the hopes you will see the logo even if for a split second before you skip it, and second why networks and advertisers have begun the extensive use of crawlers and insets. They will NOT let you escape the advertisements!

a reply to: lSkrewloosel
Free for some.

I have to pay a pretty penny to have access to the internet and it is limited.

I have to be extremely careful not to go over my limit, because I am too old a broad to hang out on the corner, and I have no younguns to sell to pay the overage fee.

A lot of us have to pay a lot of money to be here, and it is not pleasant to have to pay for crap you don't need, want, or enjoy.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Doesn't it raise just a little bit of suspicion about what is really going on with those advertisements?

The power these companies have to force them on us.

Their willingness to go along with just a quick flash of their logo.

Is it all that is needed to trigger the desired response from us?

Have we lost even the control over what we watch, see and think?

Are we truly lost? Is it over?