Someone telling you about a product is not manipulating you. Tracking or certain ad practices might be manipulative, and it's fine to push back against or ban that manipulation, but that is not at all inherent to advertising.
You might want to read up on Edward Bernays[1] if you think modern advertising is "just telling you about a product". It most decidedly is not. It is a century of of human effort poured into exploiting human evolutionary biases in order to increase sales. It's an exercise in inducing demand, not in fulfilling preexisting demand.
>What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer. And so the balance of business expenditures shifts from product research to market research, which means orienting business away from making products of value and toward making consumers feel valuable. The business of business becomes pseudo-therapy; the consumer, a patient reassured by psychodramas.[2]
Feeding people lines about what “they need” or what their neighbors might be doing is manipulative. All advertising attempts to be manipulative, IMO.
But, I’ll play along for a moment: If trying to convince people they need something that oftentimes they simply don’t isn’t manipulation, then what is it? It isn’t simply informative because it’s attempting to change one’s mind.
I think we might disagree in terms of the kinds of advertising we're talking about.
The best advertising for me is showing me a product and showing me how it's used -- the "Coca Cola will make you have friends and have a good time" style ads could be construed as manipulative, I totally get that, but if I see an ad that just says "here's the product, here's what it does" for a product that _actually_ solves a problem I have, that's pretty great in my book, and is a win-win for me and whoever makes the product.
Belongs in catalogues, store listings, the manufacturers website, product search engines, not forced into view when you’re trying to do something else.
It’d be perfectly reasonable even to have sites listing or aggregating new and updated products, or social media accounts that post about interesting [new or otherwise] products, as long as they’re not paid to place or promote products, too.
I'd say you're underestimating how much anxiety there is in the world because advertisers and influencers bombard people with the idea that they are not enough, or that they don't have enough.
It becomes very clear when you move to a different country where you don't speak the language. Suddenly, advertisers cannot tell you that you need their products. And it is very emancipating mentally.
Oh totally, don't get me wrong, I hate the majority of ads (playing the "guess what this ad is even for" game reveals just how terrible most ads are.)
The nuance for me is that sometimes (mostly online) I see ads for a tool or game or product that just shows it in action, and while 95% of the time I still don't want it, there's the small fraction of the time where I think "Hey that actually looks nice" (and I'm fine with the other 95% that just show me the product).
Commercials for insurance are basically always terrible though; if you're advertising anything besides rates, coverage, or service, then what does it have to do with your product?
This is interesting and I think it speaks to your point about us having a disagreement in terms. I don't see many ads online. I've been very happy with my pihole + ublock origin + firefox setup. Honestly if I see ads online I take action to make sure I don't see them anymore, because that's in my control! My gripe is almost entirely with IRL "meatspace" ads, though I'd be happy to give up the arms race online.
Are you regularly exposed to ads? I don’t understand this at all. Advertisement has next to nothing to do with “telling you about a product” which is why old ads are funny today. They hadn’t figured out a lot of the techniques we use to elevate advertising so far beyond that. An easy example, which some old ads even caught onto, would be associating the product with something else the consumer desires. Ever see an ad for a car with a happy family in it? Ever see an ad for a sportier car with a guy driving around an attractive lady? Is the happy family related to the function of the car? Of course not; the goal is to tie the thing the consumer wants (a happy family) to the thing they don’t yet (the car).
