Are you influenced by television advertising?

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No I'm not influenced by TV ads, mainly because I've almost completely avoided being subjected to them since the late 1970s. Sometimes I've had no TV set, other times I've had one but never watched it live - I've recorded what I wanted to see and fast-forwarded past the ads. Of course BBC content has no commercials anyway, so that made things easier. These days I only watch downloaded content and DVD / BluRay, which have no ads apart from trailers for other movies, which I occasionally look at just to see what's around, but I'd never trust such an ad enough to actually buy a disc.

I'd be highly unlikely to be influenced by ads even if I allowed them. I've studied advertising and I know how it deceives and tries to brainwash people, so I don't find it hard to spot the tricks. Long ago I decided I wasn't going to be a target for that kind of controlling activity, and I put great emphasis on being an active buyer rather than a passive one, i.e. I decide what I want and then track it down myself rather than sitting on my butt waiting to be told what to buy. The only significant downside is that I'm sometimes slow to discover potentially useful new stuff, but if I need something enough, I'll find out if it exists from people or from the Web.

My belief is that systematic mind control extends far beyond television, and even what we call advertising, and in fact permeates our entire cultures.

No but I'm a sucker for fun packaging. If I'm buying something, it helps to have a fun character on it.

Oh yes. I even wonder if there ever was a time when mind manipulation didn't exist.

Not that I'm consciously aware of.

You could say i'm "influenced", but not in the way the networks want me to.

No ad has gotten me to want to buy a product i didn't want before, nor has one pulled me to a certain brand.
However, if a company has obtrusive ads (flashing banners, shouting voiceovers, tall claims...), they will convince me to go to a different company: Ads can push me *away* from brands quite easily

I don't think people are capable of accurately judging their own susceptibility to advertising.

I imagine that I would be influenced to some degree, if I had TV service.

My guess is that the equivalent to modern ads used to manipulate people couldn't exist until cities existed. For it to work, you need people pretty densely packed and exposed to the same man-made images.

Ubiquitous images of a ruler/king/pharoe in ancient cities would serve a similar purpose to ubiquitous ad images today. The image becomes so much a part of the visual landscape that people don't even realize that they have been manipulated into taking it for granted. The message of modern omnipresent ads is "buy this" which wiggles into your brain even if you aren't paying conscious attention to it. The message of omnipresent ruler images (statues,plaques etc.) would be "here is your current/past ruler, never forget who rules". (Image from Luxor in Egypt)



A reddit thread has some examples of ancient advertising similar in format to modern ads.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1f6x3q/what_are_the_earliest_known_examples_of/



(cat house meaning brothel, in case this is not an international slang term)

This is also a type of advertising/mind control.
There is tons of stuff out there meant to manipulate our bird or reptile brains.

I worked for decades in advertising and marketing. I loathed it. I amn't influenced by anything television spews or any kind of advertising.

I think that's often true, as advertising and propaganda generally works on an unconscious level, and I think people in general are pretty uneducated about these matters (I've even heard people say that they read newspapers to find out what's going on in the world ). Though it depends on the individual. If you study how advertising works and see every ad as a "spot the dirty tricks" puzzle, and cultivate an objective, active approach to buying stuff rather than a passive, emotional one, I think you're relatively immune. It also helps if your fears and aspirations are wildly different from those of mainstream society (e.g. snob appeal, social climbing, attractiveness). Even so, it would be wise to avoid too much exposure to ads. They might catch an Aspie out with shiny things.

Nope. I have no money, so I just ignore advertising and move on. Sometimes I wonder what the supermarkets would look like without all the fancy packaging and having to rely solely on the product inside the package.

For years my mom has always been singing jingles from TV and the radio. It's really annoying.

Advertising is just beyond stupid now. If I watch anything on TV after 10pm at night, it's as if they think everyone who's watching at that time has type 2 diabetes, COPD, moderate to severe psoriasis, ED, and hair loss.

And then they spend maybe 20 seconds telling you about some drug and then they spend three minutes telling you about the side effects and a lot of them sound a lot worse than the disease. Like one time they said a medication for itchy eyes from allergies could cause cataracts!

And of course they make TV programs shorter now so they can fit more commercials. It's really obvious if you watch reruns of old sitcoms like The Golden Girls, and they don't even try to make up catchy theme songs for most cartoons any more.

How many of you had enough with insurance ad's. I swear, the insurance industry must own the ad business. It's almost like 2/3 to 3/4 of all the ad's that you see on TV or hear on the radio are for some kind of insurance.

No. Just no.

I just remembered that I love the "Trunk Monkey" ads.

I would have a Trunk Monkey.