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 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.

 insaniak wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

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.

I use an antenna for local stations. works pretty well.

 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?

But yeah. Limit their advertising reach, please.

 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

Indeed.

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.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Indeed.

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.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Indeed.

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!

Slipspace wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Indeed.

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.

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.

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.

Slipspace wrote:


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.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 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.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 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.

Ah, so you are referring to a particular subspecies of stupid. I see now, thank you for the explanation.

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.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/19/stricter-cigarette-packaging-rules-come-into-force-in-uk

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.

 Overread wrote:


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.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Overread wrote:


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 )

Not to go too far in a political direction but smoking tends to kill the user and guns tend to kill, ya know, not the person holding it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt Swain wrote:

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.