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From: gast@maui.cs.ucla.edu (David Gast)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,alt.activism,talk.environment,comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Advertising is bad
Keywords: DMA Suppression junk-mail recycling activism
Message-ID: <1991Feb1.054640.1441@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: 1 Feb 91 05:46:40 GMT
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In article <156215@felix.UUCP> asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin "the Chipmunk" Sylvain) writes:

>Don't be so all-fired-up certain they're *not* doing a public service.

If you like it, then request it.  But I don't like it and I don't want
it.

> PLEASE PLEASE don't >flame me about disposable diapers!

I'll accept your guilty plea.

>The average American sees and ignores more than 2000 advertising mes-
>sages every day.  You oughta be used to it by now.

If I saw 300 murders a day, should I get used to that?  I don't want to
see any advertising unless it has true informational value.  Period.
Can't remember the last ad I saw that had true information value.

>Let's face facts, nobody goes to the library to research what deoderant
>to buy,

Of course not.  They are basically all the same; only the advertising is
different.  How do I decide which one to buy?  I go to the super duper
cheap place and then buy which ever is the least expensive unless it is
made by a company I won't do business with in which I buy the cheapest
brand made by a company I will do business with.  In this particular case,
aerosols are out as well.

> so the decision is largely based on what advertising has had the
>most effect.

But the advertising has no informational value.  Just some stupid song
or a pretty face or something like that.  It is content free.

>*It is true* that without advertising, you simply
>*would not know* about the very existance of the products you buy and
>use.

They are on the shelf of the store.  I am trying to remember the last
product I bought where I learned of the existence of the product through
advertising, much less junk mail.

> The companies that produce those products would go out of busi-
>ness.  Then you (or me, or others like us) would be out of work.

Might be a better world.

>I must remind you that *advertising is not
>evil*!  It is a perfectly valid method of informing the public of one's
>goods and services.

Advertising is evil.  It is misleading, invasive, threatening, etc.
It provides no information, only slogans.  It increases the costs
of products.  Let's face it, it costs money and someone has to pay,
and that someone is the consumer.

Junk phone calls are even worse than junk mail.

David Gast
gast@cs.ucla.edu
{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast