undefined | Better HN

0 pointspembrook2y ago0 comments

> Advertisement used to be fact based, but it's nowaday all emotional trickery...Targeted advertising has already changed governments, caused hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies, family trouble and breakups, and many sucides.

Wow. I guess if we ban it then, we'll be living in a perfect utopia...like we used to have in the past?

Have you ever considered that "Targeted Advertising" could be, for the most part, a way for customers with wants/needs and businesses with products/solutions to efficiently match up? And that the people who have been "duped" by targeted advertising actually just have different wants/desires/needs than you?

I think its more likely that the root cause of all the things you mention, is just normal human nature stuff.

I think you might be using Targeted advertising as a panacea boogieman instead of confronting the uncomfortable real causes for these things (from election results you don't like to family breakups/suicides)?

0 comments

I_Am_Nous2y ago

Advertising has always struggled with being too manipulative. Before targeted internet ads, magazines touched up imperfections on models to enhance the "buy this and be beautiful" message they were selling. Before they could retouch photos as easily, they forced models to barely eat to be "thin and attractive", affecting the mental health of people who felt "bad" for not looking like a model...which made them more susceptible to buying the "fix" the company is pushing.

Neutral market speak about "market efficiency" and matching customers with issues to businesses with solutions is fine, but talking about it at the expense of acknowledging that advertising CAN be harmful is against the point the parent comment is making.

I remember Enzyte commercials on TV in the 2000s. Manipulative against manhood, people who tried the drug had to have a doctors note saying "No, Enzyte didn't make my client's penis size increase" to be "allowed" to cancel their subscription. I can't even begin to imagine the hell someone with a "has small penis" ad profile lives in with targeted ads.