Advertising is Immoral

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Philosophy Now
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Advertising is Immoral

Post by Philosophy Now »

Peter Gildenhuys says many adverts are saturated with sophistry.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/150/Advertising_is_Immoral
Walker
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by Walker »

Without reading the link, combining the thread title with the article description implies that sophistry is immoral, which is an example of advertising spin.
popeye1945
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by popeye1945 »

Advertising is not immoral, it is amoral, all they are interested in is selling morality does enter into it. It's a still-born topic.
Iwannaplato
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by Iwannaplato »

Well, yeah, advertising is immoral. It is parasitical. It uses experts to manipulate. So, knowledge that could help us is used by people via organizations to get them to do things they would not otherwise. Advertising starts, of course, with children, so the training is immoral in a worse way because they know they can wear down parents by creating a kind of nag factor. Parents have only so much energy. So, the companies know that if they can manipulate the kids to demand, get sad without, peck at their parents for a product, it will wear enough parents down to make it worthwhile. All the parents who stand fast on their values, have to work harder. It's like a drug dealer in the living room. And since it will be effective on some parents, then peer pressure presses on the kids and goes to the parents. The companies know all this, the nag factor - that's the actual name - and they openly discuss how to increase this in their meetings. There are many ways to objectify and dehumanize people and they are master in their niche.
promethean75
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by promethean75 »

no doubt. commercials are packed with covert emotional triggers and cues and symbols and subliminal messaging and all that shit. but i wouldn't call it 'immoral' because what would a 'moral' commercial look like?

speaking of advertisements lol. there's a locally, black owned HVAC company around here that literally runs a commercial every ten minutes on TV. the owner also has a fleet of vans that all have what must have been an outrageously expensive detailed paint job.

now I wonder how much more affordable his services would be for homeowners if this guy wasn't spending thousands and thousands of dollars a day on lame commercials and fancy paint jobs.

here i want you to see these idiots. but you understand why this is such a lame display of those very elements we've identified as deceptive and manipulative. these assholes are in business to make money, not 'do right by the customer' or  establish a family connection with em yada yada yada. he's gonna set his price just below the other major HVAC companies or make his shit more expensive so he can pay for all those god awful commercials. They're almost evangelical they're so bad. And his techs will cut corners and tell little lies to the homeowners just like all the other companies if they can get away with it.

https://youtu.be/OD3qBeZOZTA

It's so overdone I want to throw up. See y'all don't know what I know about the trades and what a disaster capitalism has turned them into.

anyway a minor point here is that the advertisement industry forces prices up because it creates unecessary expenses for business owners.
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Sculptor
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by Sculptor »

popeye1945 wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 5:46 am Advertising is not immoral, it is amoral, all they are interested in is selling morality does enter into it. It's a still-born topic.
No amoral is accurate since nearly all adverts lie; and all advert deceive. Lying is immoral in case you had no guessed.
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by Sculptor »

There is a massive rise in Type Two Diabetes in children and young adults.

The cause of this is sugar in food and drink.

Advertising of bad food is relentless saturation.

Children are dying of advertising.

https://www.diabetes.org.uk/about-us/ne ... ype-2-rise

This advertising is not amoral it is immoral
Iwannaplato
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by Iwannaplato »

promethean75 wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 2:10 pm no doubt. commercials are packed with covert emotional triggers and cues and symbols and subliminal messaging and all that shit. but i wouldn't call it 'immoral' because what would a 'moral' commercial look like?
Well, you could read the article where they give examples of bullshit manipulation. Moral advertising wouldn't have that. You could have informational advertising, where you tell people real things about your product. If it's cheaper, you say it's cheaper. If you can back up that it does X, you can say that. You can tell people where to get it and so on.
speaking of advertisements lol. there's a locally, black owned HVAC company around here that literally runs a commercial every ten minutes on TV. the owner also has a fleet of vans that all have what must have been an outrageously expensive detailed paint job.

now I wonder how much more affordable his services would be for homeowners if this guy wasn't spending thousands and thousands of dollars a day on lame commercials and fancy paint jobs.
And that would be another side benefit. Honent commercials would generally be cheaper often much cheaper.
anyway a minor point here is that the advertisement industry forces prices up because it creates unecessary expenses for business owners.
Yup.
Iwannaplato
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by Iwannaplato »

Advertising aimed at children is not just selling products. It is selling ideas about what is valuable in a person, who one is, what a good/happy person is and so on. IOW it has subtext. As adults we can - though many don't - focus on subtext, the messages underneath the open messages. We know, to varying degrees, that a lot of bullshit is being implied about reality and us via all sorts of media. Children are not experienced and much more impressionable.

https://alana.org.br/wp-content/uploads ... ildren.pdf
promethean75
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by promethean75 »

alright i didn't want to do this but my hand was forced.

what is this 'core value' nonsense about the name 'Anyday'. he says the name expresses  his core value... that is anyday or everyday service. okay, but that's an incredibly weak and ambiguous selling point. that you are able to make and keep an appointment with a customer is not a special superpower or unique feature only your company has. sure, sometimes companies show up late or cancel or whatever and this frustrates the customers. but in many more cases than not, appointments are kept between companies and customers... so this is not a major problem for the customers.

what's happening here is he's exaggerating this statistically uncommon thing so that he can set his own promise up to show up on time any day.  this is special, endearing and is evidence of a morally outstanding character. really touches the homeowner who really isn't and hasn't ever had problems with companies missing appointments or not providing prompt service.

'or core value about how we feel about delivering service'

wtf does that even mean? look. i call you and ask for a service. you answer the phone, set a price and make an appointment. you do the service, i pay you. that's it. There is no life changing spiritual experience involved in anything whatsoever to do with your air conditioner, we are not part of a family, and stupid slogans like 'we want everybody to win' is just empty nonsense.

'we focus on taking care of the customer'

okay but that's redundant. all businesses focus on taking care of fhe customer... which means providing the service for a fee.

there he goes again babbling about nothing. 

the truth is, the pricing of such services, the amount paid to the often improperly trained workers who because are being exploited, have bad attitudes and work ethics anyfuckinway, and the amount of profit amassed by the owner(s), is all an obscene mess of shit that is a direct result of the way capitalist economies arrange and effect society.

listen, there is nothing so special about this HVAC company that would warrant such long, horribly produced and expensive commercials. if anything, customers would want you to STOP such superfluous spending and lower the goddamn prices. lower yer goddamn overhead and cut all that shit out. get regular vans. they can even be two-tone. but enough of the fuckin fifteen thousand dollar paint jobs of landscapes and family portraits man.

the irony of such extravagance is not that it raises prices - that's too easy - but that customers not only miss this fact, but are also seduced by such superfluous extravagance and made unable to recognize the artificial inflation of the cost of services because of it.  
promethean75
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by promethean75 »

"Advertising aimed at children is not just selling products. It is selling ideas about what is valuable in a person, who one is, what a good/happy person is and so on."

and let me show you something softly brilliant in a zizekean way. or it would be something zizek would say, rather.

https://youtu.be/qOjH62VN8RQ

you see that the viewer is immediately disarmed, made trusting and vulnerable by the open admittance of the advertiser that subliminal forces are at work. but by purposely parodying this fact, the advertiser is no longer guilty of it. ah.

the target audience appreciates how cleverly it was done. the gross exaggeration of a group of impossibly happy people..  the kind of people the commercial promises you all will be with liberty mutual.

it's a double play on the obtrusive irony of the art of seduction and persuasion, and makes of what was once offensive (the advertiser's nerve, e.g.) something banal and innocuous because of its openess in presentation. seductive and persuasive elements are spontaneously removed.

bro I'm like an Aristotle of the metaphysics of commercial advertisements. 
popeye1945
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by popeye1945 »

Sculptor wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 3:31 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 5:46 am Advertising is not immoral, it is amoral, all they are interested in is selling morality does enter into it. It's a still-born topic.
No amoral is accurate since nearly all adverts lie; and all advert deceive. Lying is immoral in case you had no guessed.
Sculptor,

For you and I perhaps advertising is immoral, but like the industrial military complex they don't go there, business is business. Morality would only come into it if someone threaten to hold them responsible which doesn't happen very often, make it cost them, again, business is business.
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Sculptor
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by Sculptor »

popeye1945 wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 8:02 pm
Sculptor wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 3:31 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 5:46 am Advertising is not immoral, it is amoral, all they are interested in is selling morality does enter into it. It's a still-born topic.
No amoral is accurate since nearly all adverts lie; and all advert deceive. Lying is immoral in case you had no guessed.
Sculptor,

For you and I perhaps advertising is immoral, but like the industrial military complex they don't go there, business is business. Morality would only come into it if someone threaten to hold them responsible which doesn't happen very often, make it cost them, again, business is business.
You are deluded, and as such you are exactly the sort of idiot that advertising thrives on! :lol:
Iwannaplato
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by Iwannaplato »

promethean75 wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 5:24 pm "Advertising aimed at children is not just selling products. It is selling ideas about what is valuable in a person, who one is, what a good/happy person is and so on."

and let me show you something softly brilliant in a zizekean way. or it would be something zizek would say, rather.

https://youtu.be/qOjH62VN8RQ

you see that the viewer is immediately disarmed, made trusting and vulnerable by the open admittance of the advertiser that subliminal forces are at work. but by purposely parodying this fact, the advertiser is no longer guilty of it. ah.

the target audience appreciates how cleverly it was done. the gross exaggeration of a group of impossibly happy people..  the kind of people the commercial promises you all will be with liberty mutual.

it's a double play on the obtrusive irony of the art of seduction and persuasion, and makes of what was once offensive (the advertiser's nerve, e.g.) something banal and innocuous because of its openess in presentation. seductive and persuasive elements are spontaneously removed.

bro I'm like an Aristotle of the metaphysics of commercial advertisements. 
I couldn't tell if you think they are managing not to be immoral. Yes, they are openly secretly manipulating. It's reminds me of a friend of mine who used the I am not interested approach to picking up women he was attracted to but not interested in.

Their intent is manipulate. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. Yes, it's clever, in a way. But a sloppy or openly manipulative pickpocket is still trying to fuck someone over.

I did enjoy the commercial in the context of the discussion.
popeye1945
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Re: Advertising is Immoral

Post by popeye1945 »

volume profit and morality?
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