Comment by mandmandam

Comment by mandmandam a day ago

I think you might be too focused on advertising’s role in nudging individual purchasing decisions, while underestimating how advertising shapes cultural norms and values over time.

The diamond industry’s marketing campaign didn’t just convince people to buy a diamond - it redefined what engagement meant in the Western world. That’s a fundamental shift in social behavior.

Yes, nicotine is addictive - but 'clever' marketing redefined who could smoke, and why, for decades. This lead to billions in profits - and millions of deaths.

The tobacco industries playbook is still being used; by climate companies, by big tech, by polluters, sugary drink co's etc. These aren't areas where things are "mostly interchangeable" - I want a climate, and clean soil, and drinkable water; not a choice in who destroys every common good.

And think on this - of the ads you saw in your days working for big tech, how many of those ads were based on making someone feel insufficient in some way? How many exploited insecurity or fear? How many manufactured fake urgency? ... How many were straight up deceptive? Etc.

Tbph, I don't get how someone with a PhD in psychology doesn't just defend this industry, but actively works for it. You must know some of the damage being done, after all those years in school.

disgruntledphd2 7 hours ago

> Tbph, I don't get how someone with a PhD in psychology doesn't just defend this industry, but actively works for it. You must know some of the damage being done, after all those years in school.

Honestly man, I went and got my PhD because of the GFC (no jobs), and aimed to be able to provide myself (and potential family) a stable income.

My options were 1. pharma (my PhD was on the placebo effect so this would have been easiest). Super evil though

2. Finance (also super evil, and responsible for the GFC)

3. Tech (which back then wasn't perceived as evil).

So I picked tech, and honestly given the options above, I'd do the same today (although I now work for a fintech so fml).

And like, I (with a PhD in psychology and many years in advertising) don't understand why so many tech people hate advertising. Like, our society is messed up for a bunch of reasons, of which advertising is one of the least dodgy.

I think that people find it easy to blame societal problems on external influences, and advertising is a good scapegoat for why people behave in ways that one finds inexplicable.

Like, if you work for a fossil fuel company, are you equally unethical? What about finance? I'm sure that basically everyone in those industries can tell you a story about how their company or industry makes the world better, and most of those stories have some truth.

Honestly, if I could give us all (including myself) one piece of advice is to stop looking for single explanations. Basically everything interesting is caused and driven by lots of complicated stuff, and nothing is purely good or purely bad. We all just make different tradeoffs, and out of those tradeoffs we build a culture and a society.

(Note: back when I was an undergrad I would probably have agreed with everything you say about advertising, but it just doesn't rate as that impactful to me anymore, given the weak evidence that it does much).

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imiric a day ago

I agree with most of what you've said. The MO of the entire advertising industry is _based_ on influencing people's thoughts and behavior.

Two nitpicks:

> Long term behaviour change is difficult. Short term behaviour change; not so much.

As you've clearly pointed out, both short _and_ long-term behavior change is possible. The only difference is that long-term change, by definition, requires more time and resources. That's the only thing making it more "difficult".

> I don't get how someone with a PhD in psychology doesn't just defend this industry, but actively works for it. You must know some of the damage being done, after all those years in school.

Advertising is deeply rooted in psychology, and psych PhDs are highly valued in the industry. The person you're arguing with is perfectly aware of how the industry works, so any counterarguments are defense mechanisms. If they have any morals left, this is what helps them sleep at night.

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disgruntledphd2 6 hours ago

> Advertising is deeply rooted in psychology, and psych PhDs are highly valued in the industry. The person you're arguing with is perfectly aware of how the industry works, so any counterarguments are defense mechanisms. If they have any morals left, this is what helps them sleep at night.
Wow, just wow. I haven't worked in the advertising industry for going on 7 years now and given that I have two small kids I sleep pretty well at night (modulo being woken up at 3-4 am by my toddler).
One of the things that makes me sad for our species is that we find it so easy to judge other people on small pieces of information, and create narratives that allow us to justify our own small evils while feeling morally superior.
> The person you're arguing with is perfectly aware of how the industry works,
I am perfectly aware of how the industry works, and can tell you that it mostly doesn't. The impacts of advertising typically have large impacts only for small businesses, large ones merely advertise to keep their competitors from being top of mind (a concept beloved of large brand advertisers that has little to no empirical support).

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- imiric 3 hours ago
  
  I would typically apologize for my admittedly rude tone, but I have zero sympathy for anyone in the advertising industry. It is arguably humanity's most evil invention, that has prioritized benefiting the rich and powerful by manipulating and actively harming an unquantifiable amount of people, all the while being normalized and celebrated. I'm unable to accurately put into words how despicable it all is.
  Though I will congratulate you for getting out of it, so perhaps your soul can be cleansed over time after all, if you believe in that sort of thing.
  > One of the things that makes me sad for our species is that we find it so easy to judge other people on small pieces of information, and create narratives that allow us to justify our own small evils while feeling morally superior.
  I'm not trying to justify any of my "small evils". Talk about creating narratives...
  I do, however, feel morally superior to anyone involved in advertising, because their behavior is morally rephrensible. I'm fine with this small sense of superiority, because my work doesn't involve deception, and I seek to put out truth into the world. I don't always succeed at this, but I don't go out of my way to do the opposite either.
  > I am perfectly aware of how the industry works, and can tell you that it mostly doesn't.
  Your perspective goes against the mountain of research around the effectiveness of propaganda, which advertising is a branch of. It goes against the existence and very real effects of information warfare and psyops. If you need convincing, here[1] is a summary of an analysis of 82 studies that researched influence operations. tldr; propaganda _works_. Not 100% of the time, but it's a messy subject that can't be easily studied.
  I'm also aware of counter claims and studies showing the opposite[2]. I'm not particularly interested in the possibility that companies overspend on advertising and don't get a good ROI. That has nothing to do with the effectiveness of propaganda.
  The reason for this discrepancy is because getting conclusive evidence either way is very difficult precisely _because_ of how psyops works. Does the person think a certain way because they were influenced by a specific campaign, by their social circle, because they always thought like that, or because they woke up one day and decided to think like that? I.e. tracing the thought or action to the original source is nigh impossible. This is what's so insidious about this, and why it's such a good weapon. The victim will be in a state of confusion, and won't be able to trace the attack back to the attacker, or even be aware that they were under attack.
  To this day we're debating whether there was foreign election interference in the US, and if so, how effective it actually was. This is exactly the intended effect. Hell, we still don't know the origins of COVID-19, partly due to the coverup by the Chinese government, but the disinformation campaigns have been very effective at muddying this discussion even if we had shreds of truth to work with.
  [1]: https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/blog/mass-media-propagand...
  [2]: https://tomstafford.substack.com/p/propaganda-is-dangerous-b...
  
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