Advertising is obsolete, so let’s kill it with fire. Ramsi Woodcock of the University of Kentucky writes that if the only justification for advertising is that it informs, then it’s obsolete now.
Imagine a world wiped clean of advertising of all kinds…Would you still be able to find all the information you could ever want about products in this alternative world? Of course you would. Your friends, family and the host of complete strangers you follow on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and half a dozen other sites would continue to bombard you with information about their lives, including all the products they are using.
That argument make sense to me. However, he continues to write that advertising has another use: manipulation.
Check It Out: Advertising is Obsolete. Let’s Kill It With Fire
Eliminating advertising is an interesting concept that might make for lively cocktail party debate. But let’s understand that if there are no ads then users will have to pay. It’s one or the other.
The simple fact is that billions of people show through their subscriptions to Facebook, Gmail and others that they’d rather have a product with advertising at no charge. Every major company has done the testing and run the numbers and the result is the same: people simply are not willing to pay even a tiny amount for a subscription to these services that would eliminate it associated advertising.
Does advertising manipulate? Of course it does – that it precisely what it is designed to do. If ads don’t convince you to purchase a product or service then why would they be placed and paid for by the advertiser?
This argument strikes me as being a typical of an academic who has never signed the front side of a paycheck. It lacks a connection to reality and will survive only in a cloistered theoretical world.