I won’t have a problem with glass walls; the neighbors might.
Seriously, I was trying to explain that while I might like to have privacy I have no expectation of it, anywhere, because of the reality of the world and because of my experiences. And exactly how is a TV spying on me different from my neighbors spying on me?
This came up on @midnight and the Vizio was referred to as the big cheap-ass TV that you hope your friends think is a Samsung. I was very happy with my Vizio 4K big-ass TV but now that they said that, my father’s Samsung looks so much better. 
Nothing looks as good as Samsung, TV or monitor. 
Maybe it’s easier to have this discussion now that there’s no debate that such close scrutiny is occurring, that a major facet of corporate-level marketing is to assemble as many details about groups and individuals as possible and that big data makes it easy to extract useful information from such gigantic data sets. Even I’ll concede prior exchanges descended into acrimonious namecalling, but primarily because the basis for the arguments was debated… and now, a year or so later, it should be evident that they are not debatable. We are continuously monitored in various ways that generates shit-tonnes of data that is in turn used to refine marketing efforts in ways that could only be dreamed of - if that - in years past.
I’ve had a lot of people say some variation of “so they watch me / know what I buy / know how I respond / etc. and I don’t care”… and on the net it’s fairly easy to keep the argument compartmentalized and thus absolute. All I know about you is what you choose to say and what little I can infer… which you are free to say is wrong.
However… I’ve had these conversations for years and years, face to face, with individuals, couples, families and groups, and when there’s no net avatar to hide behind (and I won’t say who’s doing the hiding), it’s almost childishly simple to frame a question that can’t be dismissed with, “Oh, I don’t care if they do that.”
That you say you don’t care, that “the reality of the world” means you have no way to resist being spied on, monitored, recorded and ultimately managed to the ends of those doing all these things… I think you (the generic you) can only say such things if you believe it’s all benign or even beneficial to some degree. (Such as: “Oh, it means they’ll always have my favorite soda in stock!”)
If you think being manipulated into managing your personal economics to benefit those seeking to divert as much of your wealth into their pockets is benign, I’d love to hear your reasoning, and you can send me $100 via PayPal to my profile email while we wait.
If you think this increasingly pervasive and invasive monitoring by an increasing number of entities (who in reality represent a very small number of mega-corporations) is benign, and that nobody really cares if the TV reports back what you watch, and when, and possibly such things as the number of people in the room, and samples of their conversation - all so that big data processing can fine-tune not just Vizio’s marketing, but that of whichever high-level marketing system they sell it to - if you choose to think that’s all “just the way it is”… you really don’t understand what’s going on. This stuff is not the same-old same-old from the 1950s and 1970s and even 2000s; it’s an evolution from flintlocks and bowie knives to tactical nukes, and you are the target - all of us “you’s.”
So yes, doing things like disabling the monitoring built into TVs, and tracking built into iPhones (and enabled by default), and resisting things like rewards cards and shopper programs - these things aren’t just pointless “resisting the way things are” but "keeping the increasingly powerful forces of marketing from overwhelming our personal economics and lives and choice even more than they have with the crude tools of yesteryear.
Let me point out one tiny thing that should be terrifying: Don’t you hate searching for an item, only to be followed across sites, platforms and devices by endless ads for that item? Do you think you haven’t been so targeted by things like Vizio’s data collection, whether you ever actively “searched” for the things it sends your way or not? Do you really think, “Oh, well, that’s the way life is…” ?
You shouldn’t. Nobody should. Any more than they should allow our home walls to be replaced with glass.
Hmm
First thing i would do, is start watching lots of TV, completely nude.
If that does not stop them from ever trying to watch the camera again, nothing will.
Fine for you - for a young woman having someone take secret shots of her nude then selling them on the internet could have life-long negative repercussions. A homosexual couple doing innocuous couple things, much less sex, can still face nasty discrimination in this world even if they’re doing nothing illegal.
Which gets back to not everyone is a fan of this modern “no privacy” meme. Just because this, that, or the other person is OK with no privacy doesn’t mean the rest of the world is. Lack of privacy can have real repercussions because people are judgmental assholes.
If I’m reading you right, you’re saying I’m now the target of something like unto nuclear weapons – and they still can’t get me to buy what they’re marketing.
Manipulative people seeking to divert as much of my wealth as possible into their pockets are using increasingly powerful and overwhelming forces – which still fail, naturally, because I simply don’t want to buy the products in question.
They couldn’t do it with “the crude tools of yesteryear”, and they still can’t do it now. They still keep making movies I have no desire to see; they still keep showing me commercials for these movies; these movies still keep failing to break even at the box office. They still keep advertising stuff to eat and drink – and I keep turning 'em down even when they’re free, because I know what they taste like.
And so on.
And when I point this out, it’s often met with eye-rolling condescension; I believe that, but it’s just not so, because folks who do this for a living wouldn’t be getting paid so much money to spend so much money on ads, and I just don’t realize just how manipulated I am; patient chuckle, pat on the head; off on your way now, silly fool; you’re like a fish that doesn’t have a word for water; here I go chuckling again.
And, well, that could be true, I guess.
But what I keep coming back to is, what happens if they notice they’re wasting all the money that they’re, uh, tactical-nuking us with? What keeps us awash in free news and free entertainment is that it’s used as filler between the ads; what keeps various free websites afloat is – as far as I can tell – the stuff that’s never once earned my business; athletes playing in stadiums named for corporate sponsors make their money endorsing products I don’t give a crap about; and so on, and so on.
And I wonder sometimes: what happens if they wake up and that all goes away?
I’d bet a meaningful sum otherwise.
The problem here is that I can’t dispute The Other Waldo Pepper, because he’s a fictional construct who can, deliberately or not, with deceptive intent or not, claim anything he wants about his thought processes, buying habits, etc.
I wrote a much longer reply but there’s not much point in posting it in this thread about a specific issue.
I’ll just say that I have yet to meet anyone in real life, in the context of their life, that could make such claims stand up very long. The contradictions and (fostered) self-deception are evident and easy to point out… face to face.
A good deal of that is because to see it on the level of “I just saw a Budweiser ad and didn’t run out to buy a six-pack, therefore it’s all nonsense” and “a billion-dollar campaign couldn’t make me buy ______” is smug (and again, fostered) self-assurance that misses the point.
Marketing’s goal is to shape consumer perception and preference over a long term, on multiple levels, not all of which are readily evident. And it was successful with crude tools; has become very successful with moderately sophisticated tools (such as the computers of the last few decades and the best-and-brightest in behavioral science among their ranks)… and is on the verge of getting positively Orwellian with vast, deep and expanding surveillance and tracking and inconceivably powerful data analysis.
This is a conversation worth having, but the right thread for it hasn’t ever come up and trying to spin it into existing ones just promotes confusion… and, to my regret, what ends up looking a lot like namecalling.
ETA: Think on this a little while: if the auto industry can get you to buy ANY car of any make… the whole industry wins. If the beer industry can get you to buy a beer of any brand… the whole industry wins. If marketing can get you to spend money you might not have otherwise spent (or bothered to earn)… the whole marketing industry wins. It’s more than Budweiser ads for Budweiser.
…and still the movies flop; failing to break even, failing to even get close.
But:
So the marketing for a movie doesn’t matter, because what matters isn’t how many millions they lose on that movie; they’re just advertising the idea of “movies”, which helps out that studio – unless it’s a studio that goes under, in which case that studio was spending its money on selling the public on the idea of going to other movies put out by other studios? Have I got that right?
So a chain of restaurants goes belly-up – but that’s just the verge-of-Orwellian, and indeed verge-of-inconceivable, engine of genius bent on just scoring a win by getting people to think “gosh, restaurants, yay”. And it doesn’t matter how many chains of restaurants go belly-up, because surely people who saw those ads and then stayed away from those restaurants are still “gosh, restaurants, yay” folks. And maybe a whole industry goes belly-up – which is no argument against the best and brightest, because surely they’re oh-so-sophisticatedly selling us on, uh, “industry”.
I grant the possibility – laughable as it seems – that what they’re doing is, in fact, selling me on a myriad of [del]products[/del] industries, all while I’m failing to notice that it’s working. I merely ask whether you can, in turn, grant the possibility – which may likewise seem laughable to you – that they just excel at selling their clients on the idea that they’re as good as you say?
After all, if they’re even half as good as you say they are – well, then, selling that one particular type of customer should be a walk in the park for them, right? Take what you’re saying about how, even if products fall by the wayside, what matters is whether “the whole industry wins” – and then just apply that same concept to, well, just this one industry, the one out to sell itself as Orwellian and inconceivable: the one that wins if folks believe the best and brightest are subtly shaping perceptions and preferences and never mind that they’re not actually moving products.
If they’re as clever as you think at marketing everything else, then couldn’t they successfully market that? And if they’re not as clever as you think, then wouldn’t successfully marketing that be easier than successfully marketing anything else?
You’re taking every element to extremes. Nothing about this assumes we’re robots and the Overlords have some kind of absolute control; nothing assumes that any product whatsoever can be crammed down any one individual’s (or population’s) throat. It’s a game fo persuasion and acceptance, and there are no absolutes in either.
But the power of marketing is widely misunderstood and vastly underestimated, and probably has been since about the Mad Men/MAD Magazine days. And it’s undergoing a transformation that was only a wishful dream a decade ago, putting unprecedented levels of data in the hands of users with unprecedented ability to sift it in subtle ways… and it’s all being used to get past traditional barriers of both awareness and resistance.
You also assume that the topic is advertising - it is not. Advertising is one tool of marketing, and these days, it’s not even the most powerful of them. The industry loves to have people make this mistake and judge their exposure and resistance based on ads (Bud ad == run buy Budweiser == doesn’t happen == all bullshit). Corporate-level advertising these days is as much a stalking horse and distractor from overall marketing efforts as anything else.
Failures, especially expensive ones using these new tools, frustrate the hell out of the losers. But more and more, the field is turning to very deep and powerful behavioral engineering, far more so than the basic lab-rat stuff of a few years ago. Deeply data-driven science, not speculation. And they’re using it to shape campaigns that reach who they want, in the way they want, and with increasing (positive) results for their efforts. The best in behavioral psych don’t go into academe and human service any more - they make six figures working for marketing firms.
New entry, rather than wall o’texting it: as far as the notion of “all for one,” you’re again pushing certain elements to extremes. Movies? Fine. The collective advertising of movies, all movies, is to the good of all studios because it primes and influences the market of those who might go see a movie - any movie. It’s too easy to call this some kind of conspiracy, but it’s not, any more than it’s a conspiracy that all grocery stores put milk and eggs in the back of the store.
Nor is it anything like open collusion or price-fixing. It’s a collective practice, recognized within the industry (and industry groups), widely discussed in open publication among professionals, and ignored by Joe Q. Public who is convinced ads never affect his decision-making. Ford and GM don’t have pow-wows on advertising cars, but their marketing people know that ads for any pickup promote sales of all pickups; it’s their job to get the attention of the audience already primed to buy in that sector, a job made easier by even competing advertisers.
If I wanted to sell you a foozimawatchit, you’d reject the pitch entirely because you have no idea what a foozimawatchit is. But if there are five companies selling and marketing foozies, all I have to do is pitch you on how great mine is - you’ll respond because some carefully marketing-shaped aspect of it appeals to you more than anyone else’s. (Mine are a lovely aqua color, completely exclusive in the industry. It will match your drapes and make the neighbors green with envy at your discerning good taste and evident wealth. Barbarian Foozimawatchits… now at better auto parts stores everywhere.)
I’d still like you to address my specific question.
If I’m reading you right, you believe that these folks with unprecedentedly powerful tools for selling people on stuff – well, maybe can’t actually sell people on a given movie, but can sell people on the idea of “movies”. Or that it doesn’t much matter whether they fail to sell Budweiser in particular, because what’s important is selling “beer” in general, really. Or “pickup trucks”. Or “foozimawatchits”.
Of this, you believe, we should speak in awed tones about how transformational and deep the whole just-a-wishful-dream-in-years-past thing is.
And I’m asking you this: if they really are as good as you think – or anywhere close to as good as you think, or even half as good as you think – at selling stuff, then how good would they be at selling their clients on the “we’re great at this” message you’re touting? These folks – the ones you assure me can win me over with salesmanship so advanced that it’s indistinguishable from magic – how good would they be at winning over the people who’d actually pay them?
Happy to; I missed that turn.
Okay, again you are taking every point off a cliff, making it hard to answer sensibly.
Are marketing companies good at getting clients? Yes. And obviously, yes, they are applying what they use on behalf of clients to win clients, but it’s not the same kind of market at all. What they sell is that they are the best at marketing the client’s company and products, which might or might not be true. Companies usually choose a marketing agency for common reasons - not the least of which is personal connections, reputation, and of course track record with similar kinds of campaigns. So does Biff Baff Boom and Bongle use “marketing” techniques to try and win clients in their wheelhouse? Of course. Does it work? Probably to the extent that if two or three agencies are pitching for a new campaign, the one that does the best with this campaign will get the job. Unless the two CEOs went to the same college or share other connections, which can sway everything.
Good enough?
This is not my “beliefs.” This is the state of top-level marketing in the world today, as evidenced by any number of trade magazines, somewhat scanty publications (typically by behaviorists trying to jump from academe to industry at that six-figure level; publications about the truly advanced stuff never get past speculative levels for obvious reasons) and discussion in the component fields (including several subcategories of behavioral psych).
Look up fMRI and its original applications. (Probably closer to voodoo, or at least overhype, but that’s the level of sophistication things are operating at these days - realtime brain function monitoring.)
But I pretty much stopped trying to convince anyone on the individual level a while back, especially here; those who maintain that they are untouched by marketing can’t be swayed by these double-blind conversations. Go read a few ad/marketing trade magazine sites for a while and see if you think this is some kind of individual delusion of mine. 
Well, that makes sense. After all, I make choices for reasons – and, to an extent, the seller’s reputation and track record factor in to my choices; and then I revisit that decision: considering how well the product or service worked, and reevaluating stuff in the light of experience as guided by reason just like the man said.
And that’s what I’m trying to get at, I guess: the folks who pay for the services of a marketing company – to what extent do you think they’re sensibly taking information to heart and acting accordingly, and to what extent do you think they’re simply being manipulated into buying stuff because a psychological game of persuasion keeps getting past their barriers of awareness and resistance?
As you say, it “may or may not be true” that the marketing company in question is actually tops at marketing a client’s company and products – and the more they excel at selling their client on themselves, the less they have to excel at actually knowing how to sell their client’s stuff to anybody.
Well, that’s just the ‘beer’ industry or ‘movie’ industry or ‘pickup truck’ industry bit again, isn’t it? I mean, to the extent that you’re right – and to the extent that the ‘marketing company’ industry is the industry being shilled – then of course the trade magazines and trade magazine sites would say that; like the approach that, sure, may fail to actually sell a particular movie, but thereby sells the idea of “movies”, they’d of course do all they could to sell their industry as Verge-Of-Orwellian when it comes to info and It’s-Inconceivably-Powerful when it comes to analytics.
By your logic, wouldn’t the whole ‘marketing company’ industry market that?
Again, regardless of whether it “may or may not be true”?
I couldn’t.
mmm
Misunderstood and underestimated by whom?
Yeah, there are some people around here that claim that they are immune to advertising and whatnot, but I’m pretty sure the vast majority of us are well aware of the “power of marketing.”
You’ve often alluded to having some sooper-seekrit knowledge about Big Marketing and their devious tactics, but nothing you’ve said suggests you have anything of the sort.
And, for the record, I don’t think I’m immune to advertising; I just find its power is somewhat limited by the product being shilled. Like, given the right product, a fine ad can get me to try it once – but (a) if I try it and don’t like it, that’ll of course fail to get my repeat business; and, (b) given the wrong product, it can’t even do that. But informative advertising that brings a good deal to my attention? Well, hey, feel free to call that persuasive, I guess; the product is doing all the heavy lifting, but I have to admit that the ad is what gave it that chance.
I’ll break this out by itself, to try and maintain some clarity.
Your whole argument on this is recursive and - again - taking each element to a kind of absurdist extreme. Nothing I’ve ever said (nor anything anyone I regard as sensible has ever said) that there is some kind of robotic, absolute level to marketing… more to the point, that there is some such level to which no person is immune. Of course it’s all a spectrum or gradient, from campaigns to sell gum to campaigns to pick up the Ford pickup account.
I’d maintain that there’s so much difference between a campaign to sell a consumer product to consumers and pitching business services (including marketing) to businesses that they share only some root characteristics. So yes, an agency pitching to Ford or Apple or Jeno’s is going to use all kinds of tactics and sales pressure, but not in the same way or to quite the same ends as if they were actually crafting the pitch to consumers for that product.
Not snarking, but if you have an argument beyond, “If it’s so great why doesn’t the best ad agency in the world run everything?” you could state it more clearly.
No doubt.
Most consumers, including those who think they are sophisticated about making choices. This isn’t my opinion, nor is it…
…it’s readily available information to anyone who reads at a professional level in marketing and the behavioral sciences that hold loving hands with the marketing industry. At all levels, “marketing” talks openly about how stupid, gullible, short-sighted and self-satisfied most segments of the consumer base is. They just don’t say it in those terms. You have to read all the statistical academese and the careful C-level to C-level articles and so forth, and apply a continuing mental discount to the idea that “everything that drives more sales is good,” and it’s right there in front of you.
But one of the things that Big Secret All-Pow’rful Marketing works at is to get you to ignore the man behind the curtain, to supremely believe that you are an inviolate castle of sensible buying, that nothing really influences your choices and that you’re just so damned smart that they may as well close up shop and go home. Ancient, shopworn, utterly outdated example? “Choosy mothers choose JIF.”
Marketing doesn’t work on the Don Draper, think up a smart idea, try it out and see wha’ happen model any more. It’s statistic, science and data driven as much as most fields of engineering. The entire point of truly modern efforts is to find the weak points in smaller and smaller categories of consumer, down to individuals, and craft efforts that penetrate that weak point no matter how much overt resistance there is on other levels. And it’s the massive data collection and massive data analysis of recent years that are giving this effort so much power - because we’re no longer outwitting suave old Don D., but supercomputers with almost unlimited information about our smallest consumer and lifestyle choices.
One thing that might make my posts on this topic more accessible is understanding that I reject a lot of ingrained verities of the marketing industry. A lot of them boil down to this: I don’t buy the bedrock assumption that all sales are good, and that increases from sales, market penetration, and acceptance of consumer goods are unqualified positives.
So one thing I’ve found is that people who argue as Waldo has - that Bud ads don’t make them run out and buy Budweiser and that they believe they are self-directed or resistant consumers - carry that deeply ingrained notion (ingrained into the very base of modern economics) despite their individual choices.
That is, Ford can’t make them buy an F-150 but yay Ford for being the best-selling brand. They don’t have a use for Swiffers but admire a world that contains such wonders. They choose Coke for entirely grounded, personally-validated reasons but hooray that others can choose Pepsi.
Once you question the idea that *all *sales of *any *consumer good is an unqualified (or very lightly qualified) positive, the whole picture begins to change.