Asklemmy

All of them. Make "banning advertising" an election platform, I'll vote for you. Ban billboards and other forms of commercial advertising everywhere. Advertising works, nobody denies that. If you see enough ads, on average, your mind will be changed. By allowing advertising to exist, we are sanctioning widespread mind control. It sounds crazy when you say it that way, but it's true. Advertising does not benefit the average person, it makes them buy stuff they have no native desire for. Advertising only benefits advertising agencies and their clients.

Let word-of-mouth and genuine desire for a good or service drive purchases of that good or service, not advertising, and you'll end up with a more efficient economy where our consumer choices better invest in our shared prosperity and future.

Stealing my time for nothing in return. Watching an ad to get content is a transaction. The door to door guy, or the guy who interrupts my shopping with “I’m not selling anything just asking you some questions” is annoying and I’m never going to use their product. The ones that persist after being told “not interested” can jump off a cliff.

This one needs to be illegal.

Apps that you need push notifications turned on for, but also serve ads.

For example, where I live the company that does riding sharing also does all kinds of deliveries. I get notifications about all kinds of restaurant deals.

The version of Amazon we have sends all kinds of unwanted messages from sellers if you add an item from their shop to your cart. It can be turned off, but it needs to be done one by one manually.

Even the mobile wallet apps that we use here send all kinds of ads.

Like, I need notifications about payments and that is it. Stop giving me full screen popup ads each time I open the app to make a payment. It just slows me down and frustrates me.

All of them. I dislike every marketing tactic ever invented.

All of them.

There's this ad I keep seeing that I really despise. It's for teeth-whitening toothpaste. The actress is wearing a white coat then holds up a tissue to her teeth, lamenting that her sparkling white teeth are 'still yellow'

They cut away to teach you how toothpaste works, because surely you've never heard of this newfangled thing, and when they cut back she's no longer wearing her white coat and says how much whiter her teeth are.

It's transparently obvious that the wardrobe and tissue are just to give you something whiter to look at. But like... your teeth aren't supposed to be freakishly white. It's just something that Big Toothpaste wants you to feel bad about the way your body is. Also, using whitening toothpaste when you don't need it can damage your enamel and cause you long term problems.

Short of answering any questions about a product I ask, all of them.

If I want or need something, I will come looking. Anything beyond that is the market trying to solicit demand where none need exist.

So much waste could be eliminated if that just... Stopped.

On a related note, when shops let you "donate" stuff you buy at their store to a food bank.

I'm gonna go the other way. The only marketing I acknowledge is factual reporting of design features that make a product suitable for the intended task. Anything else is dishonest and manipulative.

Think of Chris Cooper's character from Interstate 50. Any marketing claim must be specific, measurable, verifiable, and accurate.

For me it's branding something as "AI" as a buzzword. Almost all product marketing is full of AI hype these days.

Asking me to give them profit so that they can donate is so obviously pretentious.

It's a way for them to have their cake and eat it too.

They use the desire of people to buy something they want and think they did a good thing at the same time, while the business will just take that money to donate to a non-profit (helping their public image) while writing off a part of it on their tax records (helping their bottom line).

They're not doing this from the bottom of their heart, it's just a cost of doing business for gaining some PR karma.

All of them...

Anything that involves deception, which unfortunately seems to be most of marketing.

I don't mind when people just try to get their product out there, just let it be known that it exists and does X thing differently or better. I hate when they mean to deceive. Something that is intended to deceive but isn't technically a lie is not really better than a lie, to me.

Detaching basic features from an existing free product and making people pay a subscription for it.

Honestly, sometimes when I can't sleep, watching eSports helps (especially Starcraft II). IDK why, but put on a super chill caster like Wardii and I'm out in 20 minutes.

Having some loud, disruptive ad punch through my ad blocker and try to tell me about Liberty Mutual when I've almost dozed off is close to the most rage inducing experience imaginable. With Youtube now working to inject adds directly into video streams, I'm actually anxious about the future of my best sleep aid.

Cold calling. And other proactive forms of sales when they seek you out and actively keep trying to convince you that you need their product.

Bonus points if the sales person is unable to actually explain the product and keeps talking about "we don't sell products we sell solutions"

All of them.

when movie trailers for bad movies either only show you the good reviews or stop showing up on TV once the movie is released.

Here's the thing.

I've been watching TV occasionally - she watches junk TV on this huge thing she got, and, nahhh. I usually do streaming - and every now and then an advert that comes on is actually for a product I've never heard of. It'll be something dumb like little Caesar's crazy French toast or some shit, but, to the ad's credit, I would never have known about it if I didn't see the ad.

But, 95% of ads are absolute junk. Payday loans, reverse mortgages, Dodge Rams; junk. I'd love to see the new products and Superbowl ads, and then nothing else.