Ban all advertising! Tear down the billboards!

Doc · 27-07-2012 2:24am #1

Just looked at the “Should cigarette advertising be allowed?” thread and I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great if all advertising was just banned.

There would be no interruptions to programming on TV or Radio. Horrible advertising Billboards would no longer be everywhere. The constant pressure that advertising puts on people to look better buy more stuff they don’t need and be more then they could ever possibly be would no longer exist.

If you think about it, the products you buy would not be based on what you saw on TV, heard on radio, saw on billboards or any other form of advertising but on the quality of the product. If the only way a product could gain any notoriety was through word of mouth due to it being superior and so that is where companies would invest their money instead of advertising. Innovation, quality and value would become much more important and smaller brands could compete with larger ones because quality was the key instead of advertising.

True adverting subsidises lots of industry’s but products that no longer where paying millions on advertising could surly reduce the cost of their products making paying for services such as TV or Radio more viable to people. Plus we do already pay for public broadcasting stations.
I think the world would be a much better place without people being allowed to advertise.

Factually accurate information could be posted online by the company in text form with images of the product provided in a link. This would be monitored by third parties to ensure that it was 100% accurate and did not give anything but facts.

Opinions?

CodyJarrett · 27-07-2012 2:29am

Doc wrote: »

Factually accurate information could be posted online by the company in text form with images of the product provided in a link. This would be monitored by third parties to ensure that it was 100% accurate and did not give anything but facts.

Well, I can vouch for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHpwEOyobUk

littlelulu · 27-07-2012 2:30am

it would be fantastic to get rid of that Denny ham ad on tv..... is baaaark naaaaturallll or unnnaaaatural..... naaaaturalllll.......OMG

makes my blood boil everytime :mad:

I go into a shop and make my decision based on how the product looks, take ham for an example, i buy the ham that looks the nicest (good colour etc) and the best value.. not because of a silly annoying ad! :rolleyes:

johnnykilo · 27-07-2012 2:32am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHCs3v_mFkM

</Thread>

Barry Barry · 27-07-2012 2:34am

littlelulu wrote: »

it would be fantastic to get rid of that Denny ham ad on tv..... is baaaark naaaaturallll or unnnaaaatural..... naaaaturalllll.......OMG

makes my blood boil everytime :mad:

I go into a shop and make my decision based on how the product looks, take ham for an example, i buy the ham that looks the nicest (good colour etc) and the best value.. not because of a silly annoying ad! :rolleyes:

And at the end when the kid puts the ham and bread on the natural table. The bread isn't natural..

littlelulu · 27-07-2012 2:37am

Barry Barry wrote: »

And at the end when the kid puts the ham and bread on the natural table. The bread isn't natural..

yes i do rant about that every time as well!! its the OMG that really irritates me though

Chuck Stone · 27-07-2012 2:44am

A blanket ban would be a bit 'N. Korea'.

It would be good if we could make advertising more honest. Take toilet roll ads.. instead of puppies playing with toilet roll an honest advert would say something like.

Don't leave poo hanging around your anus (picture of a dirty anus) - use PuppySoft and to wipe the shit off your anus (picture of a clean anus).

Hmmm... maybe not akshully...

Barry Barry · 27-07-2012 2:45am

littlelulu wrote: »

yes i do rant about that every time as well!! its the OMG that really irritates me though

You should write to them and demand free stuff

littlelulu · 27-07-2012 2:47am

Barry Barry wrote: »

You should write to them and demand free stuff

ahhh remember the days when ya wrote a letter and got loads of free stuff... :rolleyes:

anyway... totally gone of topic!! Return return...

tony1kenobi · 27-07-2012 2:57am

Doc · 27-07-2012 3:08am

tony1kenobi wrote: »

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

**** that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.

- Banksy

I think hes overrated a lot of the time but I agree with this quote.

tony1kenobi · 27-07-2012 3:13am

Doc wrote: »

I think hes overrated a lot of the time but I agree with this quote.

Cheers for that.I thought I had lost it.

DonkeyStyle \o/ · 27-07-2012 3:24am

Doc wrote: »

Opinions?

Psychological manipulation in ads should be banned.
Unfortunately nobody in charge in this country has the balls to do anything that hasn't been done in some other country first, so I won't be holding my breath.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgZhoCt0ouw

face1990 · 27-07-2012 3:27am

Without advertising there'd be no money to make tv programmes (apart from the few funded by licence fees), radio programmes, all online media (like this one), those dublin bike things.
It's kinda scary how every aspect of the media is so completely dependant on advertising. Even films are getting more and more of their budgets from product placements.

Doc · 27-07-2012 3:28am

tony1kenobi wrote: »

Cheers for that.I thought I had lost it.

You did. It was working then you edited it and now its gone so I quoted you and put in the Banksy quote you had posted.

Doc · 27-07-2012 3:32am

face1990 wrote: »

Without advertising there'd be no money to make tv programmes (apart from the few funded by licence fees), radio programmes, all online media (like this one), those dublin bike things.
It's kinda scary how every aspect of the media is so completely dependant on advertising. Even films are getting more and more of their budgets from product placements.

But if you think about it the millions that are spent on the advertising that pays for these things comes from the company manufacturing the products and that money is added to the cost of the products which we pay for. You get nothing for free. If the cost of advertising was removed from the cost of a product it would mean that maybe you could pay for media you wanted to see rather then having advertisers pay for it.

Chuck Stone · 27-07-2012 3:41am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9fFOelpE_8

AngryHippie · 27-07-2012 3:46am

If we got rid of 75% of advertising, would it get rid of x-factor and all tv-based talent shows ?
I'd vote for that. Louis, McFathead, Ronan, Loud spice, Wedgie Cowell and the rest of those sycophants really annoy the hell out of me.

Having said that, I do realize that no more advertising would change the way we live.

27-07-2012 5:19am

Have fun subscribing to every single website you want to visit, having no televison shows made, no magazines and one or two expensive newspapers.

Actually, just good bye media. You could argue that we can watch reruns from the 60's onwards for the next 50 years but I dont want to.

Doc · 27-07-2012 5:56am

Deleted User wrote: »

Have fun subscribing to every single website you want to visit, having no televison shows made, no magazines and one or two expensive newspapers.

Actually, just good bye media. You could argue that we can watch reruns from the 60's onwards for the next 50 years but I dont want to.

How about all the TV programs produced by the BBC in England the ABC in Australia PBC in America. Even RTE wouldn't totally vanish if it lost add revenue. The media would not go away they would just find new ways of financing themselves.

A culling of some of the TV channels wouldn't be such a bad thing anyway in my opinion.

DonkeyStyle \o/ · 27-07-2012 6:06am

What happens from the lack of billboards? Holding up the buildings probably.

27-07-2012 6:28am

Doc wrote: »

How about all the TV programs produced by the BBC in England the ABC in Australia PBC in America. Even RTE wouldn't totally vanish if it lost add revenue. The media would not go away they would just find new ways of financing themselves.

A culling of some of the TV channels wouldn't be such a bad thing anyway in my opinion.

Yea the media would charge more to finance themselves. License fees sky rocket. Websites require subscription meaning no new websites. Google charges people per search. There's no other way except charging the consumer.

Ads are fine. We live in an age where we dont even have to look at them but they still provide us with an incredible amount of free information and services. For now.

But our ability to skip all advertising using adblock etc could cause your utopia to happen anyway through lack of advertising revenue. The failed facebook ipo is a blatant example of that beginning to happen.

Doc · 27-07-2012 6:53am

I know its not going to happen that we ban all adds, but to say adds are fine I feel is just wrong.

They are hugely influential and are everywhere.

It is Impossible if you are in any city to walk 5 minutes without seeing adverts weather you choose too or not.

People say that adds aren't that influential but that's simply not true

They don't provide us with anything for free and if you think they do you are fooling yourself. No business provides anything truly for free especially not when it comes to advertising. I would love to be able to spend one day without being bombarded by adds everywhere. I'm sick of them.

27-07-2012 7:00am

I'm really not fooling myself by believing they give us stuff for free.. We're posting on a free ad supported website.

I agree with you that they're bad but they're a necessary evil. I would say you're fooling yourself if you dont see that.

abouttobebanned · 27-07-2012 7:05am

tony1kenobi wrote: »

.

That's a good point actually.

Doc · 27-07-2012 7:19am

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm really not fooling myself by believing they give us stuff for free.. We're posting on a free ad supported website.

I agree with you that they're bad but they're a necessary evil. I would say you're fooling yourself if you dont see that.

They are necessary only because we have built an industry up around them and made them important but truly they are not necessary. The media would survive and the products would survive. A lot of people have difficulty accepting the idea that ads are manipulative because we want to believe we're in complete control of our choices, but we are not.

Ads make us aspire to something that the vast majority of us cannot possibly achieve. Most of us simply cant afford to purchase all the products we see in ads and in the attempt to realize our aspirations, we borrow heavily, feel poorly about ourselves because we just can't seem to get there, and become addicted to a way of living that gradually and inexorably separates us from the things in life that bring us the most joy.

Muting or skipping ads on any medium may seem like an effective way to solve the problem, but ignorance doesn't mean the ad isn't still lodged somewhere inside your memory.

I know banning ads isn't going to happen. I just want it to.

Dravokivich · 27-07-2012 9:12am

Doc wrote: »

Horrible advertising Billboards would no longer be everywhere.
Opinions?

Could we still have the Hunky Dory girls please?

rugrats · 27-07-2012 9:17am

Doc wrote: »

Just looked at the “Should cigarette advertising be allowed?” thread and I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great if all advertising was just banned.

There would be no interruptions to programming on TV or Radio. Horrible advertising Billboards would no longer be everywhere. The constant pressure that advertising puts on people to look better buy more stuff they don’t need and be more then they could ever possibly be would no longer exist.

If you think about it, the products you buy would not be based on what you saw on TV, heard on radio, saw on billboards or any other form of advertising but on the quality of the product. If the only way a product could gain any notoriety was through word of mouth due to it being superior and so that is where companies would invest their money instead of advertising. Innovation, quality and value would become much more important and smaller brands could compete with larger ones because quality was the key instead of advertising.

True adverting subsidises lots of industry’s but products that no longer where paying millions on advertising could surly reduce the cost of their products making paying for services such as TV or Radio more viable to people. Plus we do already pay for public broadcasting stations.
I think the world would be a much better place without people being allowed to advertise.

Factually accurate information could be posted online by the company in text form with images of the product provided in a link. This would be monitored by third parties to ensure that it was 100% accurate and did not give anything but facts.

Opinions?

I don't think you realise how much advertising and sponsorship actually pay for.... There wouldn't be an olympics or a wold cup without the amount of sponsorship from huge corporate partners. Advertising effectively pays for nearly all television and radio besides the bbc, and it makes our TV licence cheaper. Advertising makes the price of a newspaper cheaper.

It's not all bad...

Tomk1 · 27-07-2012 9:32am

Do TV adds even work?
I don't think I've bought anything advertised on the TV, maybe because most are travel-ads / women-products / new-cars. At least on the web you have the choice to click on an advert, for a product that you may be interested in.

A while back I got rid the TV, basically not much to see on it, when there was, like a movie, you'd been bombarded with the exact same ''moronic'' ads repeated over and over again, like the same advert repeated 6 times when watching a movie, just destroys any entertainment value.

Maybe a product should be limited to once an hour, currently it seems legal to use brainwashing techniques.

Also independent advertisment validation, were if a claim cannot be 100% proven then it cannot be stated, or misleading use of words cannot be used.
-Like I haven't seen that Denny ham-advert, but are they claiming that other hams are in some way 'unnatural'
It's a play of words that are a lie, which for me would turn me off a company & all their products.

Some of my hate words used in ads ''Honestly good'' ''healthier choice'' ''biophocolo.....giants'' or some other made up baloney.

Talking about baloney, indiscrimitive unsolicited bulk advertisement... sounds familier.

super_furry · 27-07-2012 9:36am

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote: »

Psychological manipulation in ads should be banned.
Unfortunately nobody in charge in this country has the balls to do anything that hasn't been done in some other country first, so I won't be holding my breath.

Smoking ban?

foxyboxer · 27-07-2012 9:36am

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy **** we don't need. - Tyler Durden

starbelgrade · 27-07-2012 9:37am

Advertising has no effect on what people buy, so it's a total waste of time, effort & money in my opinion.

This post was brought to you by the makers of Coca-Cola

Chuck Stone · 27-07-2012 10:05am

rugrats wrote: »

I don't think you realise how much advertising and sponsorship actually pay for.... There wouldn't be an olympics

Dear dear deary deary me. Do you really think the advertising industry would stump up the costs of the Olympics?

The billions of pounds the Olympics will cost (somewhere between £10 to £15 billion) is being paid for by the UK tax-payer. There's not a hope that anything near that will be recouped. Also, getting tickets to the main events (thousands for decent seats) is beyond the reach of a regular UK person.

The Olympics is a total feeding frenzy on public money.

gobnaitolunacy · 27-07-2012 10:08am

Just ban the No Nonsense Insurance ads.

That is all.

Ms.M · 27-07-2012 11:02am

littlelulu wrote: »

it would be fantastic to get rid of that Denny ham ad on tv..... is baaaark naaaaturallll or unnnaaaatural..... naaaaturalllll.......OMG

makes my blood boil everytime :mad:

+ 1

It's meant to be a nature table for God sake! A NATURE table. WTF is a "natural" table? :mad: Sure you could argue anything was flippin natural in the logic of that ad. She should have slammed down a PC on the "natural" table.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

27-07-2012 11:22am

Doc wrote: »

They are necessary only because we have built an industry up around them and made them important but truly they are not necessary. The media would survive and the products would survive. A lot of people have difficulty accepting the idea that ads are manipulative because we want to believe we're in complete control of our choices, but we are not.

Ads make us aspire to something that the vast majority of us cannot possibly achieve. Most of us simply cant afford to purchase all the products we see in ads and in the attempt to realize our aspirations, we borrow heavily, feel poorly about ourselves because we just can't seem to get there, and become addicted to a way of living that gradually and inexorably separates us from the things in life that bring us the most joy.

Muting or skipping ads on any medium may seem like an effective way to solve the problem, but ignorance doesn't mean the ad isn't still lodged somewhere inside your memory.

I know banning ads isn't going to happen. I just want it to.

You keep saying media will survive, free stuff will survive.. But seriously, tell me how instead of calling for an imaginary solution in hour head. You want them banned but don't offer an alternative revenue source or even consider the collapse of media and the internet.

And I dont really care about being "manipulated" into wanting stuff. I've managed to keep a better grasp of reality than yourself and only buy things I want.

ejmaztec · 27-07-2012 11:33am

We'd lose out on this kind of artistry if we ditched advertising

Chorcai · 27-07-2012 11:37am

foxyboxer wrote: »

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy **** we don't need. - Tyler Durden

This quote belongs to Dave Ramsey from his book The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness.

Sea Filly · 27-07-2012 11:50am

It would be great for RTÉ to be ad-free like the Beeb. Unfortunately we don't have a population density of 256/km squared, so it ain't gonna happen.

ejmaztec · 27-07-2012 12:02pm

Sea Filly wrote: »

It would be great for RTÉ to be ad-free like the Beeb. Unfortunately we don't have a population density of 256/km squared, so it ain't gonna happen.

They could solve that problem by running an ad campaign promoting immigration, fertility drugs and un-protected sex.