Has any country passed laws limiting advertising, like commercials, internet ads, etc?
A while back i watched the dr. who christmas special with was 2 hours. Well, right about 50 minutes were ads. Out of 120 minutes only 70 minutes were the actual show, the rest, nearly half, was ads, commercials, etc.
Man, it's like going to a restaurant and paying for a 12 oz. steak, and when your plate shows up there's 7 oz of steak and 5 oz of garbage on it...
We pay for cable tv, we pay for internet, so why are we constantly being hit in the face with ads? When tv was free over the air, yes, i see why there had to be ads to support it. Ok.
But now we pay for tv and internet, and we have more ads than when it was free.
If we're paying for programming, i think we should demand some limits on ads. When 50 minutes of a 120 minute program is ads, that's just too damn much.
We pay for cable tv, we pay for internet, so why are we constantly being hit in the face with ads?
I suspect that it's because you made a poor choice of service. Paid streaming services don't generally have ads during the show. That seems to be pretty much just a cable TV thing, and it will likely get worse as cable networks continue to lose market share and therefore revenue to online services.
Yeah, it airs on ABC (our national broadcaster) here, also with no ads on either original broadcast or their stream. That would be weird. I think Netflix also has it, here.
This is why I rely on streaming services. That and I can get an aerial signal where I live.
I find them really intrusive as a result, let alone their mind numbing banality.
Pretty much the only time I see them is if I’m watching Walking Dead on NowTV, and even then only if I’m watching it as it broadcasts.
The only law I’m aware of is one in the US, and I think it’s state specific, that prevents broadcasters cranking them out at a louder default volume.
In the U.K., we tend to get four ad breaks an hour. But from American imports, particularly documentaries they seem far more frequent. It feels like no more than five minutes before a question is asked, only to be followed with a recap of what I’ve just watched. So out of a maybe 45 minute show with the ads completely stripped out, there’s maybe 20 minutes of actual, bona fide content.
I’m fairly confident that’s not an accurate figure, but it certainly feels like that. This has of course fed into a perception of “hurr durr ‘Muricams has no attention span”. But that’s putting the horse before the cart. Rather when that’s how your programming is presented, that’s what you adept to. And even then, it’s not exactly through choice, otherwise the US wouldn’t make all those wonderful movies.
H.B.M.C. wrote: And then eventually streaming services will introduce advertisements.
Then they'll introduce a new higher-priced "add free" tier.
That's how Hulu started here as one of the early streaming services. It was free, but with advertisements. Then you could sub for fewer ads, then sub for more for no ads. They basically conditioned people into subscription fees because their tolerance for a couple minutes of advertising was so low. (Despite it being far less than the amount of advertising on actual TV)
By way of comparison, the last Doctor Who special on BBC America was 72 minutes of program in a 120 minute slot, so 48 minutes of advertising.
Wasn't one of the selling points for cable TV in the USA the lack of adverts originally? And then the ads crept in. I'm sure the same will happen with streaming TV too.
In the UK, I believe there are limits on the amount of time spent on ad breaks per hour; in the UK it's 7 or 9 minutes per hour depending on the specific broadcaster, in the EU generally it's 12 minutes per hour (from this PDF from OFCOM, the UK broadcast regulator: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/19083/advertising_minutage.pdf )
Streaming services may not be covered under these rules, as they're not broadcast services. In general, I prefer to record a programme from the UK commercial stations (and Channel 4) then watch it later so I can fast-forward through the ad breaks. On their streaming services, the ad breaks are generally locked so you can't do that.
The reason many BBC shows are 45 minutes long (e.g Doctor Who or David Attenborough's natural history programmes) is so they fill a 1-hour slot on US TV. Sometimes they run in a 45-minute slot on the Beeb, sometimes (like David Attenborough's shows) they have a making of segment at the end that's cut from the US broadcasts to fit the ads in.
There are advertising limits per hour on Australian FTA (free to air) TV.
Not just how much per hour* but also what type of advertising is allowed. No cigarette brand ads, no doctors or prescription meds and limited legal practice advertising.
AndrewGPaul wrote: Wasn't one of the selling points for cable TV in the USA the lack of adverts originally?
Originally, cable was just a way of guaranteeing a steady signal instead of relying on an aerial. It carried the same televised channels as broadcast TV, ads and all. Dedicated cable channels came later.
chromedog wrote: There are advertising limits per hour on Australian FTA (free to air) TV.
Not just how much per hour* but also what type of advertising is allowed. No cigarette brand ads, no doctors or prescription meds and limited legal practice advertising.
There are also timeslot requirements that limit when certain types of ads can be shown, as there is with movies/series and so on, and IIRC the number of ads per hour varies depending on the time of day and the type of program.
H.B.M.C. wrote: And then eventually streaming services will introduce advertisements.
Then they'll introduce a new higher-priced "add free" tier.
That's how Hulu started here as one of the early streaming services. It was free, but with advertisements. Then you could sub for fewer ads, then sub for more for no ads. They basically conditioned people into subscription fees because their tolerance for a couple minutes of advertising was so low. (Despite it being far less than the amount of advertising on actual TV)
By way of comparison, the last Doctor Who special on BBC America was 72 minutes of program in a 120 minute slot, so 48 minutes of advertising.
Voss beat me to it. Also, doesn't Spotify have adds? YouTube has a premium option, but who would use that I don't know.
chromedog wrote: no doctors or prescription meds and limited legal practice advertising.
That would kill a third to half of US advertising (not sarcasm, sadly).
Tell your doctor you want this medication!
You may be eligible for financial conversation!
Yeah, we don't have your ads for Ambien or whatever, with the disclaimers that even at fast-speed take 3 minutes to get through.
There are ads for compensation lawyers, but yeah - we don't get most of the ambulance chaser crowd that fills US advertising.
chromedog wrote: There are advertising limits per hour on Australian FTA (free to air) TV.
Not just how much per hour* but also what type of advertising is allowed. No cigarette brand ads, no doctors or prescription meds and limited legal practice advertising.
The bar for amount per hour must be pretty high, I've given up watching movies partway through because the number of ads drove me insane.
But yeah, medication ads in the USA are hilarious, who on earth would want to take half that stuff after listening to the possible side effects. I burst out laughing after hearing one when I was in the US.
"Try our awesome antidepressants! (may cause nausea, weight gain, erectile dysfunction, fatigue, drowsiness, insomnia, constipation, incontinence, dizziness, suicidal thoughts, irritability, vision problems, dry mouth... and depression)"
trexmeyer wrote: YouTube has a premium option, but who would use that I don't know.
In my defence, I watch a lot of YouTube. And thanks to work, I tend to Google all sorts of stuff I don’t hold a personal interest in, so the ad selection for me is infuriating.
I just assumed everyone uses an adblocker on youtube.
Though it would be nice if you could unblock ads on channels you like while blocking youtube in general, lol. I don't mind people who do sponsored content within their own videos, but general youtube ads are horrible if you're just flicking through videos or watching short videos, you'll spend more time watching ads than content.
Maybe Google will figure out how to stop the adblockers one day and make YT Premium worth getting.
Though it would be nice if you could unblock ads on channels you like while blocking youtube in general, lol. I don't mind people who do sponsored content within their own videos, but general youtube ads are horrible if you're just flicking through videos or watching short videos, you'll spend more time watching ads than content.
Maybe Google will figure out how to stop the adblockers one day and make YT Premium worth getting.
Doesn't Google's browser also have an ad blocker built into it?
The whole ads on the net thing is kind of crazy to me in that its a war. The more things cost the more ads there are; but then the more people start to use ad blockers; so the value per ad goes down; so they add more adds and the number of blocker users goes up.....
I’m trying to read an article, and it’s constantly resizing itself, cutting off my music for some BARRY SCOTT, and otherwise just ruining the reading experience.
The most irritating are videos that pop up, and then follow you once you’ve scrolled past.
I mean, some people are on limited data, and there you are, gobbling it up with some video about a product so shoddy or pointless nobody would want to buy it.
There are a lot of "Spiky Bits" style websites out there. Sad thing is they rank really well in google and it can be hard to find the real quality articles written and presented by someone who clearly wanted to write a book - never did - and wrote a webpage instead.
The total amount of advertising in any one day must not exceed an average of
seven/ nine minutes per hour of broadcasting. (Seven minutes on channels 3 to 5, nine on channels above that, channels 1 and 2 are BBC so obviously no adverts)
In any one clock hour there must be no more than 12 minutes of advertising spots
and/or teleshopping spots.
I do find adverts on TV less annoying because it is an excuse to make a cup of tea.
Adverts on Youtube are at crazy levels atm, but seem reduced if you watch on the Roku app.
Though it would be nice if you could unblock ads on channels you like while blocking youtube in general, lol. I don't mind people who do sponsored content within their own videos, but general youtube ads are horrible if you're just flicking through videos or watching short videos, you'll spend more time watching ads than content.
Maybe Google will figure out how to stop the adblockers one day and make YT Premium worth getting.
Doesn't Google's browser also have an ad blocker built into it?
The whole ads on the net thing is kind of crazy to me in that its a war. The more things cost the more ads there are; but then the more people start to use ad blockers; so the value per ad goes down; so they add more adds and the number of blocker users goes up.....
I thought the Google Chrome ad blocker was 3rd party?
But maybe you're right, I don't use Chrome any more, Google has gotten a little bit to creeperish for my liking, I use gmail because I've had an account for many years, and youtube because the alternatives aren't great, but avoid anything else google related unless I'm at work because they force us to use it.
I’m trying to read an article, and it’s constantly resizing itself, cutting off my music for some BARRY SCOTT, and otherwise just ruining the reading experience.
The most irritating are videos that pop up, and then follow you once you’ve scrolled past.
I mean, some people are on limited data, and there you are, gobbling it up with some video about a product so shoddy or pointless nobody would want to buy it.
There are some sites that I just don't visit now because of ads. If sites give a sob story pop up telling you how they rely on ads so disable your adblocker, I'll often give it a chance and see if the ads are nonintrusive, but if the content is stupidly resized, videos pop up or audio comes on then it's instant close and never to return.
H.B.M.C. wrote: And then eventually streaming services will introduce advertisements.
Then they'll introduce a new higher-priced "add free" tier.
HBO Max is going to introduce a cheaper tier that includes ads (and doesn't include the same-day movie releases). So the current service stays as is, but people have a new option to save a few bucks if they're okay with some ads. This seems like a solid approach to me.
Youtube's ad algorithm is terrible. Not so much for the choice of ads, although I've never seen one for anything I might want, but because they just seem to break in mid-sentence. They don't seem to be evenly spaced throughout a given video, so I would have thought they'd be inserted automatically at quiet points, but no.
I quite watching TV the day it took me 3 hours to see a 90 minute movie, with I think 8x 7-minute ad blocks, the evening news, weather TWICE and lotto drawing all jammed in there.
lord_blackfang wrote: I quite watching TV the day it took me 3 hours to see a 90 minute movie, with I think 8x 7-minute ad blocks, the evening news, weather TWICE and lotto drawing all jammed in there.
Even worse is when they cut part of the movie in addition to all that, so you watch an hour of ads only to miss 10 minutes of the movie anyway!
The only ad limitations that I am aware of in the US do not pertain to the volume per hour of ads, but rather the decibel volume differential between diffterent things.
Basically, any given ad can be no more than X% decibels off of the given program's volume when they go to commercial break. So, if your TV is set at a volume level where say, "VOL 15" emits 20 decibels of sound (totally arbitrary number here, dont shoot me), the commercials cannot be programmed to be over like, 22 decibels loud, or 18 decibels at the same volume point on the TV set.
I personally don't think its very effective, as there were still plenty of times where an ad was objectively louder than whatever it was I was watching, and you still have major volume disparities between various advertisers.
Back in the days when "new" shows would take up to a year to hit our screens (if at all), there was a thriving trade in VHS cassettes being posted back and forth between friends of mine and other people they knew in the USA.
Sometimes, they'd edit the adverts out of shows, other times they left them in. The cheesiness of some of those ads would shame a 4 cheese pizza.
We pay for cable tv, we pay for internet, so why are we constantly being hit in the face with ads?
I suspect that it's because you made a poor choice of service. Paid streaming services don't generally have ads during the show. That seems to be pretty much just a cable TV thing, and it will likely get worse as cable networks continue to lose market share and therefore revenue to online services.
JFYI, my friend streams thru the net and so do i. I have roku and sling.
Roku and Sling aren't streaming services, though, they just give you access to the streams provided by the various providers. The amount of advertising you get will be down to the channels you choose to watch. If you're watching commercial TV channels, they're going to have commercials.
When they first started streaming, some of the commercial channels here just put the adds at the start and end of the program, but in the last few years the local channels here have all started inserting the ads into the show. Which largely put us off streaming anything from the commercial channels, not for the quantity of ads but because of the way they chose to insert them - Instead of using the actual commercial breaks built into the show for the regular broadcast, the adds just go in at specific time intervals, interrupting scenes mid-sentence. Which is beyond irritating.
So for content from the local commercial stations, we generally just record it from the live broadcast so we can fast-forward the ads, rather than trying to stream it. Although most of our TV viewing these days is on Amazon or Disney. Or DVDs, because I'm old-fashioned like that.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: My weekly foray into broadcast telly just now, as it’s Walking Dead.
Eff me there are a lot of gambling adverts. Like, a lot.
Judging by TV, web and football sponsorship I think the only people spending any money on advertising in the UK are gambling firms. It's possibly their attempt to spend so much money that when they inevitably come under scrutiny for the nature of their product and methods of advertising they're so deeply embedded in advertising it'll be catastrophic for the industry if they're restricted. I constantly get those adverts too, despite never having used an online casino or betting service in my life. I do wonder if this is due to YT's rubbish algorithms lumping all "gaming" under one big banner to include TTG, video games and gambling.
Yeah. I’m not against gambling as such. Certainly I’m not adverse to the lottery or fruit machines in pubs. A little flutter can be fun.
But, I see the financial downside through work when people get addicted. And I have serious concerns about the state of high streets when it’s predominantly betting shops.
Surely anyone with an interest in sports will know what’s coming up, where and how to place a bet if they so wish?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: My weekly foray into broadcast telly just now, as it’s Walking Dead.
Eff me there are a lot of gambling adverts. Like, a lot.
Gambling has taken off in a big way in the UK. From bingo to the horses and races to gambling websites. Heck you can see why, those gambling websites are likely dirt cheap to produce and run with only security and serverspace being big costs and yet they can rake in huge amounts of money from customers. It's a growing addictive problem in the UK; its why there have been calls to limit its advertising like drink and smoking and to put more warnings into them - that's why there's all these "When the fun stops stop" slogans in the marketing
It's funny because going down the track and having a flutter on the horses or dogs seems quite old fashioned, but also quite a fun day out!
Tapping away on one of those smartphones doesn't seem quite the same experience.
Kroem wrote: It's funny because going down the track and having a flutter on the horses or dogs seems quite old fashioned, but also quite a fun day out!
Tapping away on one of those smartphones doesn't seem quite the same experience.
I've never done either, but I can see the entertainment value in a flutter at the races and such if you go out with friends. It's then just part of the entertainment like going to any other kind of event like a cinema or such - albeit one that might cost a bit more. But yeah just tapping away on a phone I don't see entertainment, I see more desperation to win money more than anything else and that's dangerous when you know the system is built so that the "house" wins
Now, something like Roulette or cards, where it’s either sheer blind luck, or luck married to skill? Sure.
But....online??? Sorry, but who is checking the programming to ensure there’s no “we lost £1k on Game 1. Ensure no customer wins for 6 hours” type shenanigans.
Now, something like Roulette or cards, where it’s either sheer blind luck, or luck married to skill? Sure.
But....online??? Sorry, but who is checking the programming to ensure there’s no “we lost £1k on Game 1. Ensure no customer wins for 6 hours” type shenanigans.
Actually I believe there are strict rules for online, its part of the whole issue that the video games are having right now with things like random loot crates and EA putting an actual real money casino into their basketball game. Basically formal gambling games have to adhere to strict rules and guidelines on the code; but the video game companies who were basically making gambling games as a side content weren't being classified as gambling and were thus sneaking it in without being regulated.
Of course even with monitoring the system is still weighted for the house to win overall. You basically play to see if you're the one lucky person who gets to win as opposed to lose through the system; with the issue that you also have to recognise your win and walk away. There's many a tale of someone winning good money and then - either in one go or steadily over weeks/months losing it all in a bid to try and win big again.
Now, something like Roulette or cards, where it’s either sheer blind luck, or luck married to skill? Sure.
But....online??? Sorry, but who is checking the programming to ensure there’s no “we lost £1k on Game 1. Ensure no customer wins for 6 hours” type shenanigans.
There are extremely strict rules in place for this kind of thing, even more so than for the betting machines you see in betting shops. The code has to be made available to the regulator and verified by them, IIRC.
For me the difference with something like going to the race track or an actual casino is those both tend to be social experiences rather than pure betting ones. I know there are people that go to those venues just to gamble but for the average person a trip to the races is a proper "day out" sort of experience.
To bring it back to advertising at least a little, you know what really annoys me? When Amazon keeps pushing products to me similar to ones I've bought from someone else's wishlist. How can it be that stupid? Feels very similar to the dodgy YT algorithms that can't differentiate between that one Google search I did for a new dishwasher two weeks ago and the hundreds of hours of guitar-related videos I'm watching. Maybe advertise some music products? Nah, here's some ads for dishwasher tablets!
Now, something like Roulette or cards, where it’s either sheer blind luck, or luck married to skill? Sure.
But....online??? Sorry, but who is checking the programming to ensure there’s no “we lost £1k on Game 1. Ensure no customer wins for 6 hours” type shenanigans.
There are extremely strict rules in place for this kind of thing, even more so than for the betting machines you see in betting shops. The code has to be made available to the regulator and verified by them, IIRC.
For me the difference with something like going to the race track or an actual casino is those both tend to be social experiences rather than pure betting ones. I know there are people that go to those venues just to gamble but for the average person a trip to the races is a proper "day out" sort of experience.
To bring it back to advertising at least a little, you know what really annoys me? When Amazon keeps pushing products to me similar to ones I've bought from someone else's wishlist. How can it be that stupid? Feels very similar to the dodgy YT algorithms that can't differentiate between that one Google search I did for a new dishwasher two weeks ago and the hundreds of hours of guitar-related videos I'm watching. Maybe advertise some music products? Nah, here's some ads for dishwasher tablets!
I've been noticing that Google's code isn't as good as it used to be even when searching. I've had many times where they keep suggesting the same few websites to buy a product from even though its sold on a lot of other sites. I think the issue is that advertising code has shifted from trying to show you the best results to trying to show results with a built in bias for certain results. So instead of showing you 10 competing stores its showing you 3 stores with lots of ads from each one.
Another is showing you suggested/promoted items before your search results. Amazon and a good few food stores do that - you search for X and your first few results on the page are products Y and Z. I don't mind getting suggested ideas on the actual product page because then I've got what I want, but before I get there is a pain.
The final layer is that there's a lot of complex layering to marketing now. It's not just trying to search for what you want and show you more of the same; its trying to group your search history (as much or as little as it has) into specific buying groups. So you might only want guitar stuff, but its saying that that along with your other search and buying history, suggests that you fit a Group and that that group often likes buying dishwashers; hence it keeps showing you dishwahers.
AndrewGPaul wrote: Youtube's ad algorithm is terrible. Not so much for the choice of ads, although I've never seen one for anything I might want, but because they just seem to break in mid-sentence. They don't seem to be evenly spaced throughout a given video, so I would have thought they'd be inserted automatically at quiet points, but no.
Watched a 30 minute government address on YouTube..... and had 6 ad breaks of 30 seconds or longer. One was mid-sentence of the speakers last line before they left.
I was doing my part as a citizen to be informed, and my reward was ads. Ridiculous.
Since, I only go to C-span directly to watch anything of the same ilk.
Long long ago I had a research project in some Business class. Ended up doing it on the cigarette advertising ban in the US.
It was one of the few industries that supported the banning of it's own product, at least for radio and tv. I think it worked out pretty well for them considering the decades of savings it bought them. Nearly all their adds are POS displays and store signage.
To bring it back to advertising at least a little, you know what really annoys me? When Amazon keeps pushing products to me similar to ones I've bought from someone else's wishlist. How can it be that stupid? Feels very similar to the dodgy YT algorithms that can't differentiate between that one Google search I did for a new dishwasher two weeks ago and the hundreds of hours of guitar-related videos I'm watching. Maybe advertise some music products? Nah, here's some ads for dishwasher tablets!
Heh. . . many many moons ago, I bought a steelcase DVD set of "Band of Brothers" on amazon. Shortly after, back when their "recommendations" page was a lot better and just a list page, they'd show you recommendations based on the cross-section of your entire purchasing history. . . Well, apparently, because I had bought Band of Brothers, they showed me a set of fething bath towels that had been purchased by someone else who had bought the same dvd as I had. . . Ya know, cuz the two are so closely related
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Veldrain wrote: Long long ago I had a research project in some Business class. Ended up doing it on the cigarette advertising ban in the US.
It was one of the few industries that supported the banning of it's own product, at least for radio and tv. I think it worked out pretty well for them considering the decades of savings it bought them. Nearly all their adds are POS displays and store signage.
Weirdly, they still seem to be doing fairly well for themselves as advertisers and sponsors in F-1 racing, despite the ban on placing outright "Marlboro" branding onto the Red cars. . . Now, it is way more sneaky and interesting, such as Ferrari's Mission Winnow branding.
NinthMusketeer wrote: That such fallacy-ridden displays of half truths are considered acceptable is a symptom of what's wrong with society.
And we can blame so much of it on a little blue pill. . . Yes folks, advertising is such gak today thanks to the marketing behind Viagra.
Prrreeetty sure it has more to do with people being so dam stupid than anything else.
While I agree, and perhaps I shouldn't have quoted that comment you should know somewhat what I'm on about here:
See, its in a ton of business school textbooks (particularly big focus in my MBA marketing texts) as forever altering the landscape of marketing. . . Basically, before Viagra came along, the most medication commercials you'd see were all for OTC stuff: antacids, tylenol/Advil, Vick's vaporub, that sort of thing. Along comes this drug that didn't really do what it was designed to do, but hey, we spent all this R&D on it, so how can we make a buck?? I know!!! We'll do a massive ad campaign as a bedroom enhancement pill for dudes!!! (or, probably something way more dull and boring was said during a board meeting).
Viagra was THE drug that changed all of television commercials, not just medical ones. But. . . you take a look at, or actually sit down and watch the latest crop of capitalist savior pills (here to fix whatever bs the last drugs messed up), and you'll see they are full of things that drift between lies and half-truths. Like, they are not being sold on their medical necessity, but rather being marketed to justify the RnD costs.
Ever since Viagra, the levels of euphemistic advertising has gone up, as well as the number of idiotic prescription drug commercials (which only exist because of a profit-driven healthcare system, but that discussion would veer well into no-go territories for this forum). One of the biggest problems with advertising prescription only medications on mass media like television, is the needless, time wasting conversations (arguments) it starts between patients and doctors. In my MBA program, we had a cohort of doctors, and every single one of them confirmed the same thing at various points in our classes together: drug adverts make people absolutely dumb as gak. One of the docs who went on a school trip with me was telling me how this situation would be so comical if, when it happened it didn't eat up so much of his time, and, if when he told a patient they had zero medical reason for whatever pill they were asking about, the patient would drop it, it wouldn't be such an issue. But, he was telling me how, almost like conspiracy theorists of the CT thread from a while back, this trained medical professional saying you don't need X is somehow cause in those patient's minds that they absolutely NEED that pill, and they will beg and plead to see a different doctor assuming they will get a different outcome. (needless to say, him being a military doc, and dealing with a military population, he actually can shut these situations down with greater effect than perhaps a civilian sector doc could)
Sure, part of the reason we see more and more of it, is because, as you say. . . people are so damn stupid they buy this gak up, so the marketers see that it "works", and feed us more of it.
Veldrain wrote: Long long ago I had a research project in some Business class. Ended up doing it on the cigarette advertising ban in the US.
It was one of the few industries that supported the banning of it's own product, at least for radio and tv. I think it worked out pretty well for them considering the decades of savings it bought them. Nearly all their adds are POS displays and store signage.
Speaking of cigarette ads, didn't some country, i think maybe england or australia, ban cigarette makers from usuing bright colorsd and logos on cigarette packages a while back?
I recently did see a cigarette ad on a channel on sling tv, it's a schfi channel i can't look the name up now that shows ads from the 60's and 70's, just one, before each movie on a graphic of an old tv. It's a historical thing, they showed an old cigarette ad.
In the UK they are banned from advertising in shops, the actual booth that they are held in is now greyed out half the time. Furthermore the packs have to contain shock-fear images of things like lung cancer.
Yeah, Australia banned all logos, colours and other branding from packs back in 2012. A few other countries followed suit in more recent years.
They're also limited in how they can be displayed in stores - I haven't been keeping up with it as it doesn't affect me, but it used to be that they had to be in a plain case with only one of each pack type displayed. A lot of shops these days have them behind a counter in a cupboard where they're not really visible... not much point wasting space displaying them when there's nothing to actually display other than graphic health warning pics.
~Yep though I'd say the two biggest changes that I think have had a big impact are
1) The steady shift toward making it less practical and socially accepted. It's gone from being allowed everywhere to being banned in most places. Food, workplace, leisure - all banned. You can smoke but you're basically being excluded if you want to do it - its a huge move toward the same "being sent out of the classroom" punishment.
2) The shift off movies/tv. Heck even when they do period dramas and such you hardly see any pipes being used and cigarettes are almost gone too. You really notice it when you watch older films or even something like Cowboy Bebop - people are lighting up all the time. Yet today you might just see a wizard light up for a few moments to make a point that they do it, but otherwise its very much gone.
2) The shift off movies/tv. Heck even when they do period dramas and such you hardly see any pipes being used and cigarettes are almost gone too. You really notice it when you watch older films or even something like Cowboy Bebop - people are lighting up all the time. Yet today you might just see a wizard light up for a few moments to make a point that they do it, but otherwise its very much gone.
I've also noticed the shift in film in that now, IF you see someone smoking, they are clearly the bad guy. . . and not the "cool" villain. . . but the sleazy sidekick that you'd never leave anyone you cared about alone in a room with. . . like, deliberately remove any and all trace of "glamor" out of it.
2) The shift off movies/tv. Heck even when they do period dramas and such you hardly see any pipes being used and cigarettes are almost gone too. You really notice it when you watch older films or even something like Cowboy Bebop - people are lighting up all the time. Yet today you might just see a wizard light up for a few moments to make a point that they do it, but otherwise its very much gone.
I've also noticed the shift in film in that now, IF you see someone smoking, they are clearly the bad guy. . . and not the "cool" villain. . . but the sleazy sidekick that you'd never leave anyone you cared about alone in a room with. . . like, deliberately remove any and all trace of "glamor" out of it.
I remember when 'avatar', aka dances with catpeople, came out. Some people were having fecal hemorrhages over Sigourney weaver smoking in it. i think some countries gave it like the equivalent of a R or X rating over it because a 'good' character smoked in it. Yeesh. (Oddly enough when weaver did "aliens" she had a problem with it as she's anti gun and wasn't too crazy about toting a massive weapon in it. https://samjmiller.com/sigourney-weaver-in-conversation-about-aliens/ . But i didn't hear her object to smoking on camera. What kills more people annually, guns or smoking )
Veldrain wrote: Long long ago I had a research project in some Business class. Ended up doing it on the cigarette advertising ban in the US.
It was one of the few industries that supported the banning of it's own product, at least for radio and tv. I think it worked out pretty well for them considering the decades of savings it bought them. Nearly all their adds are POS displays and store signage.
Speaking of cigarette ads, didn't some country, i think maybe england or australia, ban cigarette makers from usuing bright colorsd and logos on cigarette packages a while back?
I recently did see a cigarette ad on a channel on sling tv, it's a schfi channel i can't look the name up now that shows ads from the 60's and 70's, just one, before each movie on a graphic of an old tv. It's a historical thing, they showed an old cigarette ad.
IMO if they put the same bright colors & logos to use on the cancer warning it's cool Giving a society freedom means it has freedom to harm itself, and there are certainly plenty of worse ways to do that than smoking which don't come with labels.
In other news, isn't it funny how advertisements can basically flat-out lie so long as they put a * and explain how it's a lie in tiny text at the bottom?
I don't think you're allowed to say anything objectively false, but you can misrepresent the significance of data.
Most shampoo adverts say something like "95% of women said their hair was softer and cleaner after just one application!" when the small print at the bottom says it was a survey of 56 women done in 2011 or something XD
Or the good old "Voted top in X Magazine" when the company that makes the product also happens to own the Magazine. Indeed there's a lot of big names that are owned by the same firm in the background but you'd never know it if you didn't go looking for the information.
Or the "Used by REAL Dentists!" that toothpaste ads love to use along with someone dressed up as a dentist. Which doesn't actually mean its approved by the dental boards and such, it just means normal people use it and some of those people are bound to be - dentists.
That said I think the UK has some stricter laws regarding medical ads compared to the USA
privateer4hire wrote: I was watching a ton of ads on YouTube and suddenly they were interrupted by content!
It was horrible. Fortunately, more ads came along soon.
You could, you know, PAY for ad-free. How would YouTube make money without the income that comes from ads or subscriptions? Advertising is what allows content to be free or cheap. Been the broadcast business plan for decades because it works.
Kroem wrote: I don't think you're allowed to say anything objectively false, but you can misrepresent the significance of data.
Most shampoo adverts say something like "95% of women said their hair was softer and cleaner after just one application!" when the small print at the bottom says it was a survey of 56 women done in 2011 or something XD
Ah. That reminds me of the horrible soap ads currently infesting Youtube. They're creepy and disturbing on a lot of levels, but they also toss around 'facts' that are meaningless, but designed to frighten people. 'Other soaps are classified as detergents' and 'ours won't affect sperm count'
privateer4hire wrote: I was watching a ton of ads on YouTube and suddenly they were interrupted by content!
It was horrible. Fortunately, more ads came along soon.
You could, you know, PAY for ad-free. How would YouTube make money without the income that comes from ads or subscriptions? Advertising is what allows content to be free or cheap. Been the broadcast business plan for decades because it works.
It’s also important to remember that the YouTube channel can choose how many ads, and where they go.
This is why I like FactFiend. If they do a sponsorship, it’s on Karl’s terms and he doesn’t otherwise monetise the video. And where there are ads (dudes are making a living after all), they save them for the end of the video.
I never used to bother with an add-blocker on youtube. A few adds here and there was no big deal. Then the combination of umpteen US election adds and them demonitizing channels like TimeGhostHistory got to me.
Now, seeing an add is just a reminder to update either Firefox or AdBlock.
Kroem wrote: I don't think you're allowed to say anything objectively false, but you can misrepresent the significance of data.
Most shampoo adverts say something like "95% of women said their hair was softer and cleaner after just one application!" when the small print at the bottom says it was a survey of 56 women done in 2011 or something XD
Ah. That reminds me of the horrible soap ads currently infesting Youtube. They're creepy and disturbing on a lot of levels, but they also toss around 'facts' that are meaningless, but designed to frighten people. 'Other soaps are classified as detergents' and 'ours won't affect sperm count'
This was a big thing back in the '90s when everyone became terrified of cholesterol, and brands started marking products that naturally don't have cholesterol in them anyway as 'cholesterol free' as if it was a selling point.
My current personal 'Feth, that's dodgy' winner is a milk brand here in Oz. There's a product here called A2 Milk, which is milk with only the A2 protein. For the uninitiated, cow's milk normally contains two proteins that are referred to as A1 and A2. Some research has suggested that milk that doesn't contain the A1 protein is easier to digest... and so A2 milk was born, without the A1 protein. One of the other big milk brands started labeling their perfectly normal milk with a big tag saying 'Contains the A2 protein!' in order to mislead people looking for A2 milk into buying their regular milk instead. This has managed to slip by the advertising standards because it's not a false claim - the milk does contain A2 protein, as all milk does. It's just as irrelevant a selling point as the 'contains nuts!' warning on bags of peanuts.
And don't even get me started on burger advertising...
privateer4hire wrote: I was watching a ton of ads on YouTube and suddenly they were interrupted by content!
It was horrible. Fortunately, more ads came along soon.
You could, you know, PAY for ad-free. How would YouTube make money without the income that comes from ads or subscriptions? Advertising is what allows content to be free or cheap. Been the broadcast business plan for decades because it works.
It’s also important to remember that the YouTube channel can choose how many ads, and where they go.
This is why I like FactFiend. If they do a sponsorship, it’s on Karl’s terms and he doesn’t otherwise monetise the video. And where there are ads (dudes are making a living after all), they save them for the end of the video.
Well, I'm sure no one watches those end-of-video ads, which makes me equally sure that advertisers don't pay very much for them. Offering placements where they won't be seen isn't a terribly smart business plan.
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Matt Swain wrote: I won't pay to support youtube because of their policies that basically demonitize people who have channels that advertisers find unacceptable.
Okaaaay. But by choosing the free version, you're supporting the advertising-driven business model. In which advertisers will (rightfully) have something to say if their paid placement is paired with some goofball jackhole spewing offensive gak.
Well at the risk of getting yet another thread of mine locked i will say that youtube basically launched an assault on atheist channels, and openly said that atheist channels that refuted mainstream religion would all be blanket demonitized because advertisers did not want to support a platform that let atheists make money.
I got a good chuckle from the "Gluten Free!" label placed prominently upon yogurt. I got another good chuckle but was also a little disappointed when I saw the same on canned tuna.
Don't get me started on organic and non-GMO labeling, which border homeopathic medicine levels of crap in their totally-not-claims.
privateer4hire wrote: I was watching a ton of ads on YouTube and suddenly they were interrupted by content!
It was horrible. Fortunately, more ads came along soon.
You could, you know, PAY for ad-free. How would YouTube make money without the income that comes from ads or subscriptions? Advertising is what allows content to be free or cheap. Been the broadcast business plan for decades because it works.
Nah. Gives me time to hit the bathroom or grab something in the kitchen.
Matt Swain wrote: Well at the risk of getting yet another thread of mine locked i will say that youtube basically launched an assault on atheist channels, and openly said that atheist channels that refuted mainstream religion would all be blanket demonitized because advertisers did not want to support a platform that let atheists make money.
And this is why I have an ad-blocker on youtube. If they want to demonetise atheist platforms, they won't be making ad money from me.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I got a good chuckle from the "Gluten Free!" label placed prominently upon yogurt. I got another good chuckle but was also a little disappointed when I saw the same on canned tuna.
Don't get me started on organic and non-GMO labeling, which border homeopathic medicine levels of crap in their totally-not-claims.
To be fair, gluten is used as a thickener in all sorts of things you'd never expect to find it in. People with gluten allergies and such find such notices extremely valuable.
A lot of food is processed on shared production lines and regular tuna fish could be packed right after a flavored version. Listing it as gluten free means it was made on a dedicated line, or was thoroughly cleaned before switching over.
For the Starkist brand, a number of their Tuna Creations do indeed have wheat in them. From a quick look they all get it from added soy sauce. So yes, at least in the US, listing it as gluten free means they are ruling out cross contamination.
This is a personal pet peeve with me regarding Frito-lay. Some of their products are listed as being gluten free. Others have no gluten containing ingredients, but are not listed because they are made on shared lines.
I recall watching a short bit on peanut free chocolate production and the reason many firms don't do it (and thus cannot put "nut free" on the packet) is because it basically requires a whole separate side of the factory totally isolated from any nut using segment even down to staff requiring full body cleaning if moving from the nut region to the no-nut region.
Basically big firms that do production at a single factory and then ship out just can't afford to rebuild part of the factory to do it; which is why smaller firms that fill a niche can often slip in to fill the gap because for them they just don't produce any nut flavourings and everything is thus nut free etc...
And yeah it can be odd what ends up in our food. Fishmeal appears in a lot of pet foods, even when they aren't listed as "Fish Flavoured". Even food for cattle and other herbivore livestock will have a content of fishmeal included.
Of course something like glutin is a double edged sword. It's great for those who do suffer from an intolerance, however at the same time some have come to think that glutin is a "bad thing" and that glutin free food is healthier when in reality its only healthier for those who have an allergy/intolerance to glutin.
A lot of food is processed on shared production lines and regular tuna fish could be packed right after a flavored version. Listing it as gluten free means it was made on a dedicated line, or was thoroughly cleaned before switching over.
For the Starkist brand, a number of their Tuna Creations do indeed have wheat in them. From a quick look they all get it from added soy sauce. So yes, at least in the US, listing it as gluten free means they are ruling out cross contamination.
Fair enough, I suppose cross-contamination from flavored tuna lines is pretty plausible.
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Overread wrote: I recall watching a short bit on peanut free chocolate production and the reason many firms don't do it (and thus cannot put "nut free" on the packet) is because it basically requires a whole separate side of the factory totally isolated from any nut using segment even down to staff requiring full body cleaning if moving from the nut region to the no-nut region.
Basically big firms that do production at a single factory and then ship out just can't afford to rebuild part of the factory to do it; which is why smaller firms that fill a niche can often slip in to fill the gap because for them they just don't produce any nut flavourings and everything is thus nut free etc...
Dunno, that it would take such measures to remove the allergen seems pretty nuts.
Matt Swain wrote: Well at the risk of getting yet another thread of mine locked i will say that youtube basically launched an assault on atheist channels, and openly said that atheist channels that refuted mainstream religion would all be blanket demonitized because advertisers did not want to support a platform that let atheists make money.
Half of American Youtubers out there got demonetized for some reason or other if they were a channel covering anything other than children's toys.
Remember, we yanks have a bit of a "thing" for boom sticks, and anyone making a boomstick channel got their money making abilities taken away. A few scale modelers that I have watched recently were also hit for demonetizing, and they build scale models!!! My dad only found out about demonetized channels when he asked me about what a certain video was talking about on his favorite youtube golfer channel. Like, how bloody offensive is golf for feth's sake?!?
I think the one thing that we all could agree on, regardless of each of our individual P-word leanings, is that we wish the platforms were more even-handed about this stuff. Seems like for everything that got demonetized, there's a channel devoted to another subject that could produce just as offensive content. Or, there are channels that make no bones about what they are about. See the gun channels. . . None of them try to sell themselves as anything other than firearms enthusiasts. Many of them will even produce age restricted content, which now is an automatic demonetized channel. None of the social media platforms are immune from this criticism either: every single one of them, we have plenty of examples of wholly arbitrary enforcement of "community standards", and that's pretty much what anyone who's been vocal in the fight about demonetized channels has been asking for.
And, in terms of what ads youtube forces on us (ie when im at work and don't have an active ad blocker), even their targeted advertising algorithms are steaming piles of garbage. . . Either that or the things that I am into that would actually generate clicks if I saw them in an ad are so obscure that those companies cant even pay for that level of advertising.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I got a good chuckle from the "Gluten Free!" label placed prominently upon yogurt. I got another good chuckle but was also a little disappointed when I saw the same on canned tuna.
Don't get me started on organic and non-GMO labeling, which border homeopathic medicine levels of crap in their totally-not-claims.
To be fair, gluten is used as a thickener in all sorts of things you'd never expect to find it in. People with gluten allergies and such find such notices extremely valuable.
My Lass is coeliac, and severely so. I’m not, in fact I have no food allergies whatsoever.
As you say, people would be surprised where Gluten is used as filler or thickener. So prominent GF labelling is welcome, as I don’t want to be buying snacks or treats she can’t enjoy when we’re allowed to see each other again.
It may also be of interest that one can be fine, then become coeliac later in life. Trev for instance developed coeliac during pregnancy (can’t remember which of the girls it was), and don’t quote me on this, I think it was linked to gestational diabetes. So she found bold GF labelling an aid whilst she got used to living with it.
Overread wrote: I recall watching a short bit on peanut free chocolate production and the reason many firms don't do it (and thus cannot put "nut free" on the packet) is because it basically requires a whole separate side of the factory totally isolated from any nut using segment even down to staff requiring full body cleaning if moving from the nut region to the no-nut region.
Basically big firms that do production at a single factory and then ship out just can't afford to rebuild part of the factory to do it; which is why smaller firms that fill a niche can often slip in to fill the gap because for them they just don't produce any nut flavourings and everything is thus nut free etc...
And yeah it can be odd what ends up in our food. Fishmeal appears in a lot of pet foods, even when they aren't listed as "Fish Flavoured". Even food for cattle and other herbivore livestock will have a content of fishmeal included.
Of course something like glutin is a double edged sword. It's great for those who do suffer from an intolerance, however at the same time some have come to think that glutin is a "bad thing" and that glutin free food is healthier when in reality its only healthier for those who have an allergy/intolerance to glutin.
I was under the impression than many foodstuffs can't be labelled as nut-free because nut oils are often used as lubricants in the mechanical assembly lines (because they are edible and cheap) so they are unable to guarantee no contamination. No idea where I heard this though so i might just be mis-informed! Anyone no if there is any truth in this?
Overread wrote: Of course something like glutin is a double edged sword. It's great for those who do suffer from an intolerance, however at the same time some have come to think that glutin is a "bad thing" and that glutin free food is healthier when in reality its only healthier for those who have an allergy/intolerance to glutin.
That's just ignorance at play. But at least here it does something useful. The money spent in ignorance helps fund more - and more affordable - products for those who truly need them.
I’d wager women’s cosmetics constantly harping on about “flaws, blemishes and imperfections”.
That’s...not healthy wording, at all. Saying your skin is flawed, suggests there’s such a thing as normal. Imperfections? You’re not imperfect, you’re just you.
All part of a media seemingly hellbent on inflicting mental health issues on girls and young ladies.
They couldn't do it without a literal buy-in from the people they are 'inflicting' that viewpoint on. In this case I think the industry is just feeding a mindset that is already more ingrained than any amount of advertising could ever achieve; the human capacity for cultural norms of appearance. It would not be a problem if people just... chose to stop caring. That one is on the people.
The wording has an impact, the product promises to fix that impact. We know it probably doesn’t, because the benefits are overblown.
And I think you underestimate the impact of advertising. We might like to think it doesn’t really influence us, but that’s clearly incorrect, otherwise the advertising industry wouldn’t exist. After all, advertising isn’t cheap. If it didn’t produce the desired return, nobody would invest in it.
I like to think I’m largely immune to it. Certainly “grrr! Manly men manly! Grrr” type stuff mostly just makes me laugh. That’s down to my own comfort in my body, rather than a particular strength of mind. And it helps fluke of DNA has see me conform to many classical male traits without ever seeking it (tall, chonk build, full beard, ridiculous alcohol tolerance, deep voice etc. None of that is the result of a particular desire, other than the beard I guess. Oh, and full head of hair when the other blokes in my family are balding). Others may feel influenced to take action, and fair enough, I’m not judging anyone here.
Yet....I might be watching something, and see an ad for KFC. And I’ll order some, because I like KFC. I don’t like it because of advertising, but the advertising reminded me I like it, so the influence works.
There's always ads we are resistant too and ads we are susceptible too. The whole "I'm immune to ads" often means "I'm immune to some ads that are commonly weak things for others"
Eh car and alcohol ads have no effect on me; nor to shaving ads. However they are very popular product lines with high profits that lets them market a lot. Instead I'm more likely to be swayed by "Oh dragon KS ad". Something that "the masses" might not fall for, but I will.
So I'm not ad immune I'm just not common with the ads I'm immune too
A few months ago, YouTube seemed to be putting whole music videos in as "adverts" - I've no idea who or what the point was. One seemed to have some plot line involving gangs in London, drug dealers and Jamaican Yardies murdering one another.
Now, I got an ad for some dodgy Yank banker (both literally and euphemistically, by the look of him) wanting to be mayor of London. No idea why, as the ad was just a five minute attack on "politicians" in general, and nothing to say what this guy will do. Plus, I'm nowhere near London, so it's pointless showing me.
All part of a media seemingly hellbent on inflicting mental health issues on girls and young ladies.
I don't think it's deliberately trying to create mental health issues, but it is certainly done with little regard for the consequences. The key to so much successful advertising is to create a problem and then provide the best/only solution. Hence, your skin is flawed, you should buy our moisturiser which targets however many causes of skin damage we've decided looks good on the pack!
Hell, the entire deodorant industry was created by cosmetics companies telling everyone that their natural body odour was unpleasant and needed to be dealt with, and it worked so well that they trained entire generations of people to think that way. Ditto women's hair removal products.
Advertising has a huge impact on people--the massive amounts of money spent on it testify to that. I am just pointing out that when it comes to cosmetics/appearance standards advertising is taking advantage of something already present. Does it have an effect on those standards? Very much so. But the origin is still with the people. Advertising could be stripped out of the equation entirely, there would still be appearance standards and negative feedback for individuals that lie outside a given culture's idea of what someone 'should' look like. To put the blame on advertising is to both ignore the real cause and to frame such standards as an artificial construct of modern society instead of something that has been inherent to humanity for our entire existence.
As for advertising 'immunity' I have mixed feelings about the term. After all, what does it really mean? To use myself as an example, the majority of adds have no impact on my purchasing habits because I am not the target demographic. An add for a medicine to cure X is irrelevant when I do not suffer from X. An add for a new car (there are a TON of these in the US) is irrelevant because I am not currently seeking to get a new one. Refinancing, lawn care, floodlights, irobot, any number of things that I personally have no use/desire for but are aimed at others viewing the same content who might want those things. Am I demonstrating 'immunity' here? Not really, because there was never a chance for the add to affect me in the first place.
But what about the more grey area, where it is something I could theoretically want if I totally bought into the add's presentation? Like that commercial for Dr. Squatch (I think that's the name) soap which rails against 'normal' soap being classified as detergent and listing off its herbal-sounding ingredients. If I were the naive type to take that at face value I might buy the soap. But I'm not, I see the logical fallacies at work and know them for what they are. I think when people refer to immunity this is what they mean. After all if the soap really was that great compared to the competitors I would indeed buy it, and the reason I am not interested is because it is not. The add failed in its attempt to deceive me.
However, adds need not be so overt. Perhaps the constant bombardment of car adds makes me more likely to evaluate if I want a new car, and influencing me in that manner. For many it goes further and they might convince themselves they want a new car when without the adds they would not. But on that initial subtle level I feel it is impossible to draw a line where the influence of adds ends and ones own legitimate desires begin. Maybe I really DID want a new car and would have realized it the next day when I was getting into my old one. Did the advertisement influence me by prompting that realization earlier? Well... sort of?
And finally we get to that very tiny fraction of adds that actually interest me. I would say the most common add that influences my purchasing directly would be one showing off a new deal or menu item at a fast food franchise* and prompting me to visit that location over others. But it is really the product itself driving that choice and the add only served to notify me. If I got a text from a friend saying 'hey this place has this deal' I would still take the same action. So the add did affect my actions directly, but only in that it provided me information I did not otherwise have. The blast of color, music, and extremely unrealistic depiction of the menu item that is actually served don't play a big factor because I am (very) well aware at this point of what I will actually be getting. Does this mean I am not immune to the add, or that I am?
It adds up in my eyes to 'advertisement immunity' not being a good descriptor because the whole concept doesn't really work that way. Yet, I find what people mean when they say that is 'good at seeing through the species of bs traditionally used in advertisements' which is rather wordy and so having a shorthand referring to the concept is useful in conversation.
*I eat fast food a lot as a conscious choice because it is something I enjoy--my overall dieting/budgeting takes it into account and as such there is a relatively fixed frequency of purchase. So nomming down on some blended animals pressed into the shape of different animals at a certain rate is an inevitability but the location of purchase is not.
Yeah, I worked for a while for a company that sold Xylitol, which was marketed as a 'natural' alternative to sugar. Xylitol, for those who don't know, is indeed made from a compound that occurs naturally in certain plants, but is manufactured through a laboratory process involving several acids and other chemicals to strip the xylitol out of the fibres. Hardly a 'natural' process.
To add to the fun, xylitol made from birch trees was marketed as being superior to the stuff made from corn, despite the process that produces it resulting in them being chemically identical. It would be like extracting, say, pure water from a strawberry, and pure water from a potato, and claiming that the water from the strawberry is somehow 'better' than the other.
Dodgyness all around, and it would have encouraged me to not use the stuff myself even if it didn't give me migraines...
insaniak wrote: 'Organic' bottled water also makes me snicker.
"Organic Pure Himalayan pink salt".
Natural salt is WHITE. PURE salt is white. Sodium+chlorine. Pink salt is pink because of iron and other IMPURITIES in it, so cannot by definition be "pure". It's also NOT mined in the Himalayas.
Back in the day pure salt was a premium, the gold standard of salt. Then there was a process invented to easily make massive amounts of it. Now the tables have turned, with premium salt being the kind with more dirt in it
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insaniak wrote: It would be like extracting, say, pure water from a strawberry, and pure water from a potato, and claiming that the water from the strawberry is somehow 'better' than the other.
Sounds like the next stage of homeopathic medicine!
Homeopathy has evolved since its early days. Those in charge realised that the magical water cure was getting too much fire from science and sanity so they spliced it with herbal remedies. So modern Homeopathic medicine is both a mix of water-magic and herbal - which is very sad because good herbal is real medicine and thus does have real benefits that are scientifically proven. So they've brought in some legitimate along with the illegitimate which lets them keep going.
gorgon wrote: Perhaps the all-time best descriptive marketing line is 'natural'.
Especially given that it was only around a couple years ago now that "Big Corn" was able to lobby (re: pay) the USDA enough, or congress, or whomever, to allow foodstuffs sweetened with High Fructose Cornsyrup to be labeled as "natural sweetener"
And, from the single course I had in marketing during my MBA I'll say this for the effectiveness of mass market commercials: often times it isn't so much about attracting you as a customer, right now. In some of the examples brought up the aim is a bit different. Take car commercials, sure they may want you in the dealership right now financing a new $90k pick up truck. But the reality is, they know the average american only buys every three years. So, the car commercials are about a constant presence and constant influence on your future purchase. . . If you're a Ford guy now, Ram and Chevy want to influence you to their product, next time you're around. Same thing with beer commercials: its about trying to influence you away from one brand toward another. Course, beer they don't often cite another brand (like, no mentions of "taste tests show blah blah blah" stuff) the way automotive does. Of course, what has a much bigger influence on big ticket items, such as automotive purchases, appliances and the like, is really the customer service at the local level. So, I work in a car dealership's parts department, and I can't tell you how many customers I've won over simply by treating customers better than another parts/service department. If people feel mistreated or ripped off in their car purchase, they are going to go elsewhere.
I would also say, based on that MBA course, no one is as immune as they think. Sorry, we just aren't. . . Sure, we can all post here about absurd ads, logical fallacies, volume levels, etc. etc. but from a marketers standpoint: they already won. . . They got you thinking about the ad/product outside of the space of the advertisement. Which is, ultimately the point of advertising. . . See, one of the best strategies for ads is, like the Superbowl in the US, on monday after the game, you go in to your place of employment, and "omg, did you see that commercial? sooooo funny man!!!". The ad was successful in getting head space beyond the 30 seconds it took to watch it. Even if you don't purchase, your talking about it to someone else in your sphere can cause them to purchase, and someone else talking about an ad/product can cause you to purchase it. Now, I cannot argue the effectiveness of advertising all that well, as I only had one course on the subject during my uni time, but I had a few cross classes with folks doing an MSM (master of science in marketing), and I know they could run circles around all of us on whats going on behind the scenes in marketing. Of course, they would be linking things together in the totality of marketing rather than the singular act of advertising (things like shelf placement, email coupons, sales timing and amounts, etc)
It repeatedly amazes me how large businesses can be so savvy as to the subtleties and nuance of advertising or lobbying legislation but miss something as simple as 'gee, if we treat our customers/employees decently we will get better results'.
Funsad reality; the average human is as productive, long term, with a 30-hour work week as with a 40-hour. Because they are less tired they create the same amount of productivity in less time. But people can also push and increase their productivity via a 40-hour week -short term- and so companies decided 'oh hey, since humans can do this for two weeks, clearly they can do it for twenty years'.
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Overread wrote: Homeopathy has evolved since its early days. Those in charge realised that the magical water cure was getting too much fire from science and sanity so they spliced it with herbal remedies. So modern Homeopathic medicine is both a mix of water-magic and herbal - which is very sad because good herbal is real medicine and thus does have real benefits that are scientifically proven. So they've brought in some legitimate along with the illegitimate which lets them keep going.
There is a term for alternative medicine that works; medicine.
Ninth I've also read that shorter working weeks and more regular weekends can also boost productivity in general.
It's likely the same as how working from home during Corona has shown many companies that it actually works and employees can and do remain as productive at home as at work; and that those who are not are often those who were a problem at work to start with (and might have managed to mask it by getting other to do work for them).
Sadly it takes a big case of being shown not just being shown studies for companies to adapt and change.
I remember when 'avatar', aka dances with catpeople, came out. Some people were having fecal hemorrhages over Sigourney weaver smoking in it. i think some countries gave it like the equivalent of a R or X rating over it because a 'good' character smoked in it. Yeesh. 
What kills more people annually, guns or smoking 
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