My personal observation is that advertising is going to be the end of us all. But I won't talk about the specifics of how that will happen, today. Instead I will talk about how I avoid, and how you can avoid deceptive advertising. And even in fact how you can defeat the very purpose behind their cheap tricks.
Note this only works for modern advertising. I anticipate a next generation advertising that all out lies, pretending to be an objective source. Like those 10 page ads in Discover(tm) magazine, that are disguised as articles but have the little teeny "Advertisement" tag on the edge of the paper. But this applies to advertising like election posters, candy colored products, and TV ad blasters.
I just got a telemarketer call. I love those things! I have the perfect strategy. I one day realized that the longer a telemarketer is on the phone, that's the longer they are spending not making a sale. So I act interested and polite, and ask them about their products and how they're doing. This one went on a good 10 minutes. n.n If everyone made that sacrifice, and talked a long time with telemarketers instead of hanging up angrily, but NEVER bought anything, then the DDoS would drive them out of business!
It's true for all advertising really. I consciously avoid purchasing products with empty advertising, that deceives more than informs. And I seek out objective sources as to what I'm paying for, not the company itself. In boycotting products specifically for the advertising designed to trick one into buying them, that creates market pressure to stop being mean!
Of course... a good product with bad advertising is still my choice. Like I voted for the nice senator last election, even though she puts those stupid "vote for me!" signs along roadsides. But all things equal, you can fight back by penalizing and refusing to support people who employ deceptive advertising, be they politicians, religious leaders, or company sponsors.
Even more, you can tell your friends about this secret, how they can take their world and their community back. Just find the most attractive looking advertisement, and avoid buying it. Pretty soon companies will have to resort to tactics like *gasp* producing a quality product.
Remember, never forget, that companies only have to convince people to buy it, and if the product has hidden costs it won't affect the sticker price. Buy small strawberries for instance. Seriously: the large ones are just pumped up full of water to be big and red and juicy looking, but when you buy them and eat them, you realize they have the same flavor, and sugar present in the tiny strawberries. In fact, as the refrigerator dries out the strawberries, you will be amazed to see them shrink to the size of garden strawberries, albeit wrinkled and dry. That's just one example of a company making their product worth less, but more attractive, and they can sell you a carton of 20 strawberries swollen to twice the size of normal ones, for the same price as 40 normal strawberries in the same carton.
Don't allow this. Buy the brand second down on the ladder. Buy the product with less packaging, and recyclable stuff. Buy local! By all the gods buy local. Money you spend to people in your own community is money not spent at all, since they will need stuff from you in return. It's when you spend money at Walmart, that it goes into the tight pockets of fat wealthy white men, who review their stock options and attend yacht parties, but not before it passes through Asian factories where workers are practically enslaved, and through oil guzzling ships and trucks. Trust me, a low sticker price is not worth that. You might as well burn the money, since it would cause less waste and suffering. Buy local.
On a somewhat less related note, have you noticed how our USA government has been cracking down on immigration, but loosening trade boundaries? It's a sad day when a multinational company is allowed to cross borders with impunity, but the workers fleeing that company's slave conditions are imprisoned in their own country by immigration restrictions. Who do we trust, people? Or profit driven oligarchs? Sure people are violent, crude, and unstable, but those that are profit driven are the true genocidal world killers.
Comment
Index
Previous
(Why I Don't Like The Stock Market)
Next
(How to Share Nicely)