Bossy Ads

[Cloral]

Am I the only one who gets annoyed by bossy ads? Ads that aren't polite, don't ask, but instruct you to do things. It seems to me that as the consumer, I am doing the company a favor by buying their product. The least they could do is be nice in their advertising. But no, they are always slinging such phrases at us as "Call now!" and "Stop by today!" Such advertising makes me dislike the product. Though to be fair, most advertising has a negative effect on me.

edit:
Argh! I meant for the title of this thread to be "Bossy Ads" not "Boddy Ads":sweat:

Edit:
I fixed it for you, babers. Well, I thought I did.
-moo

Edit:
I fixed it. I'm not calling you babers, though.
-Eckels

[Beldaran]

I am doing the company a favor by buying their product.

I completely disagree with this. No one is doing anyone a favor. You are exchanging value for value. You are exchanging your money for something you consider to be of equal worth of that money. Therefore no one owes anyone anything, no one did anyone any favors. It's an equal transaction. Capitalism (ethical capitalism) is all about equality.

[Cloral]

That's not true. Without consumers, the company would go out of business. Therefore, there must be an inequality in the transaction. Besides, if all things were equal, why would the company spend so much money on advertising?

[ShadowTiger]

Nobody would know that they have something worth exchanging. :shrug: Besides word of mouth and ads, there's really not much a small company can do to get word of their product or service out there.

[MacWeirdo42]

They're usually trying to sell useless crap that nobody needs. Therefore, it seems to me that it is a favor. And I agree whole-heartedly... It's bad enough we have to put up with ads for products that we'd never buy in a million years, but gah, some of them are so rude.

[Modus Ponens]

I could be wrong, here, but isn't it the case that if a company sold a product for an amount of money that was completely equal to its value, then that company would not receive any profit in the transaction? You can be sure that if you're buying something you see advertised on TV, there's profit involved.

Advertisement in general is such a bizarre phenomenon. I almost never buy some good or service simply because I saw it advertised, and I'm sure that most people agree in most cases, and yet any company that does not advertise at all will almost certainly perish. It all works on this nearly-invisible subconscious level. It's quite fascinating.

Hi, Beldaran. Nice to see you.

[Beldaran]

Without consumers, the company would go out of business.

And without the company, you wouldn't get anything at all.


Therefore, there must be an inequality in the transaction.

No, there needn't be inequality. Can you prove why there must be? If I am hungry, and McDonalds offers to sell me a hamburger for 99 cents, and I decide that a hamburger is worth at least that much to me and pay it, how have I been disadvantaged? I have exchanged a value for another value that I consider to be at least equal. No matter how aggrivated I am at the expense, I would not have paid if I didn't think, on some level, that it was worth it.


Besides, if all things were equal, why would the company spend so much money on advertising?

A company and a consumer both benefit from a transaction. Therefore, a company will benefit from having the most transactions possible. Advertising is the logical extension of a company's desire to gain more benefits (profits) for itself. Greater desire to produce profits on the part of companies leads to greater opportunities for customers to make value exchanges that allow them to benefit in ways they might not have otherwise.



I could be wrong, here, but isn't it the case that if a company sold a product for an amount of money that was completely equal to its value, then that company would not receive any profit in the transaction?

A thing does not have a universal objective value. It has a different value to everyone. A box of tampons has absolutely no value to me, but it is worth money to a woman on her period. Let's examine a situation of a company making a profit.

I purchased a videogame for $50 a few months ago. To me, that game was worth $50. I bought something at precisely its value, and yet the company made a profit. How is this possible?

It is possible because of the secret ingredient that people who believe in a zero-sum economy cannot grasp. That ingredient is human effort and ingenuity. Before I bought the video game, it existed only in the mind of someone who wished to create it. He used money to acquire the raw materials necessary to creat a game (computers, software, employees with skills) and they used their intellect and effort to design and create something. This caused the raw materials which had a value of X to now have a value of X + TheValueOfTheGame. So a new value was added to the economy. These people greated value out of nothing but their minds! It is the magical process of human creative production that added value.

The raw materials are now worth more to me than they were before. I did not want to buy a compiler or a 3D modelling tool. But I am more than willing to buy a videogame.

I paid $50 for a videogame because it was worth $50 to me. If it was only worth $10 to me, I would not have bought it. I paid exactly what it was worth and the company made a profit.

I want to repost your statement again and respond to it a different way.


isn't it the case that if a company sold a product for an amount of money that was completely equal to its value, then that company would not receive any profit in the transaction?

Let's say all a company does is get things and bring them to the store. They don't create anything.

I want to buy some chicken. If this company did not exist, I would have to drive to a farm that raised chickens. This would likely be horribly inconvenient, because I would have to drive all over the state (possible the nation) to buy enough food to make dinner. Instead, I am willing to pay much more for chicken than the company that hauls chicken. This company might go to a farm and pay $1 a chicken and buy 1000 chickens and take them all to the store. Then they sell the chickens for $5. They make tons of money! And I pay $5 for a chicken that's only worth $1 to someone else? Why would I do this?

Because the company used it's motive energy to affect that state of the chicken; it's geography. By making the chicken more convenient, they have added tangible value to it (from my perspective) so I am willing to pay more. I am not doing that company a favor by purchasing a chicken. I could argue that they are doing me a favor by bringing it to the store. But that's wrong too, because I'm compensating them for hauling it.

It is a completely equal transaction in which the company profits and I don't.

I hope you can appreciate the beauty of this situation because it is what led to so many (if not all) of the wonderful luxuries we enjoy as semi-modern humans.



Hi, Beldaran. Nice to see you.

Hi! :)

[Modus Ponens]

You make some good points in there. The truth is, there's always a price of convenience, and I'm almost always willing to pay it. $1.00 delivery charge on a pizza? You kidding? I'll pay, no question.

Dude, what if there were a service where you could order that $50.00 game and have it delivered? And it would only have some nominal delivery charge...and they could call it Amazon.com or something cool like that... Yeah, I'm definitely on to something here.

[Darth Marsden]

There's a term for this sort of thing. Wish I could remember it. Something about how a company supplies the things that we demand..?

Back on topic: Yeah, some adverts are too pushy. Some always have been, I think. We just haven't been paying enough attention to the things to get annoyed by them. And you can trust me on this, I'm an advert expert. True story! Ever since I was young, I would always rush into the front room as soon as the adverts came on, I'd sit down and watch them without a word, and when the program started again, I'd up and leave. So if there's one thing I know, it's adverts.

[Cloral]

One only has to look at the extravagent lifestyles of the CEOs to see the inequality in the transaction. My purchases help to sustain these lifestyles, so the least they could do is to be polite. And don't get me wrong - I'm not saying capitalism is bad. I wouldn't have the job I do without it. But I don't buy a whole lot of stuff and I don't eat out very often - probably about once a week. That's probably one of the main reasons ads annoy me as much as they do. They're a waste of my time since I'm not going to buy their product anyway.

[AtmaWeapon]

Bossy language is what is used to push the followers into buying. The only ones that really bother me are ads that promise me free stuff when in reality it's more like "Hey we're going to charge you $20 more than our current markup and give you a free $10 gift aren't we pals?"

[4matsy]

What pisses me off, though, is when they do something REALLY retarded, like just repeat the same thing over and over again.

First it was:

"Freedhem, the only one-application hemorrhoidal cream!"
"Freedhem, the only one-application hemorrhoidal cream!"
"Freedhem, the only one-application hemorrhoidal cream!"

And I thought that this ad was sufficiently retarded.

Then came:

"Head On, apply directly to the forehead!"
"Head On, apply directly to the forehead!"
"Head On, apply directly to the forehead!"

But NO.
JUST WHEN I THOUGHT IT WAS OVER.
JUST WHEN I THOUGHT IT SIMPLY COULDN'T GET ANY GAYER THAN IT ALREADY WAS.

THE ORIGINAL REPEATERS COME BACK.

OH THE HUMANITY:

"Freedom from hemorrhoids? Freedhem hemorrhoid cream."
"Freedom from hemorrhoids? Freedhem hemorrhoid cream."
"Freedom from hemorrhoids? Freedhem hemorrhoid cream."

YAAAARGHBLFASDFASDFASDFGHJKL

* Hypercrash smashes his head into a conveniently-nearby brick wall

[Cloral]

Then came:

"Head On, apply directly to the forehead!"
"Head On, apply directly to the forehead!"
"Head On, apply directly to the forehead!"

lol, did you see the NBC news piece where they were talking about that commercial? They showed some spoofs people have made of that commercial including one of Zidane using it before headbutting that guy and another one where a guy rubs an iron on his head.

I probably wouldn't find that commercial as amusing if I had seen it more than once though.

[Eckels]

The head on commercial made me laugh like hell, since i had no idea what the fuck it was for. And it made no effort to explain it to me.

Does it moisten chapped foreheads?
Does it prevent athlete's head?
Is it a forehead deodorant?
Is it a roll-on anti-perspirant?
Is it glue to help hold on a hat? or toupee?

The commercial explains nothing. (I think it's a headache medicine or something).

[Yoshiman]

Well, saying something like "You don't have to buy our product, but we'd really enjoy it if you did" isn't going to have many customers go out and pay for the product.

Being assertive and bossy is an advertising technique, just like using boobs.

[Prrkitty]

The head on commercial - is for migraines. I've read reports that it's really supposed to work... but *I* can not vouch for it. Thankfully I've not had a migraine in over 5+ years.

[Tygore]

At least we don't have commercials like this anymore... (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Maj1laI5HD0&mode=related&search=)

[Starkist]

The truth is, people are stupid. If a company made a commercial advertising a product and merely stated what said product is, what it does, and why it is better than competing products, millions of Americans would be scratching their heads thinking, "Ok, but what do you want me to do now?" People have to be told what to do.