Wow. What a completely unbiased article.

Without ads I wouldn't even be aware that a lot of products exist. I find that since I've stopped watching live TV, I rarely know what movies are coming out and what looks good.

So yeah, I'd say that ads "help" me in that they make me aware of things I otherwise wouldn't be aware of. And I like that they do that. But I don't like ads.

@Cant_stop_the_rock:
This is where people tell me about all of the other places I can find out about the things I see in ads...

"Who knew you were so stupid?"

I did actually laugh out loud at that.

@Cant_stop_the_rock:
Also, as the article notes, I like that ads give me access to free or less expensive content.

(this is where people use poor logic to try to convince me that ads don't actually make things less expensive)

LOL at that woman's face!

"If I can hold it in JUST a little longer..."

@bitslammer: Yeah, a lot of the articles on Consumerist are like that. What's worse is the censorship that goes on this site.

Hi, Billy Mays here from beyond the grave. You love me! You really really love me!

@floraposte: I chuckled. But then, those 12% spambaits had me feeling a bit odd.

@Josh Saint Jacque: I took it to be in reference to the AdWeek article. The study was conducted by Nielsen, which is AdWeek's parent company.

Nielsen is in the business of selling people (they call it "ratings," but they really mean "people") to advertisers. Thus, this research that shows how much people "love" advertising is a bit suspect.

Ads make the world go round. They're everywhere. Unless you live in a cave in the mountains cut off from civilization, (and if you're reading this, you don't) from the time you wake up till the time you close your eyes and go to sleep, you are bombarded with advertising. A lot of it you're probably not even aware of, but it works on you just the same. They're designed to make you think they're helping you. It works.

I LOVE what I do. As a graphic designer, (and former broadcast media specialist) I get to help create the world around me (and you). Doesn't mean I always agree with the ads I have to create, but being able to shape and create them from my point of view out weighs any negatives. Plus it gives me total insight into the tactics and strategies employed in advertising that work on you in oh such subtle ways. A sort of x-ray vision, if you will for my everyday life away from work. My experience ensures that there aren't very many advertising campaigns that are able to override my senses unless I choose to let them.

It's a pretty awesome fricken career. One I hope I can continue for life.

@BZMedia: Ah, the obligatory "everybody is stupid but ME!" comment. If only I had the internet savvy to post the obligatory xkcd comic.

@MostlyHarmless: I keep thinking of that asian guy from UHF.

"STUPID! YOU SO STOOUUUUUPID!"

@Applekid: UHF = ?

@Excited_Utterance: Just the opposite. I don't believe that people are stupid because they buy into advertising. Advertising costs a lot of money to engineer properly to be effective. If it's cutting through your skepticism defenses, then it's succeeding because it's a good ad, not because you're stupid.

@Josh Saint Jacque: Foil hat much?

People do strange things in ads...like eat at Arby's.

@MostlyHarmless: UHF... the Weird Al movie that unfortunately opened the same season as "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", "Batman", and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade".

It's about what you'd expect from a Weird Al film, much like Private Parts is about what you'd expect from a Howard Stern film.

The only interesting thing about the "study" is the regional variation. Note that Europeans are unsurprisingly less tolerant of advertising than other regions - which, surprise! only include "North America" and "Latin America" in the writeup. The actual study smashes a place called "Asia/Pacific" right in with the "Middle East."

Basically, though, this is a way for Nielsen to assuage advertisers' fears over drops in consumer confidence.

FYI, here is the N - The most recent Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey was conducted by Nielsen Consumer Research from March 19 to April 2, 2009, among 25,420 Internet consumers over 50 markets across Europe, Asia Pacific, North and Latin America and the Middle East.
I see nothing else about their methods, so can only assume this was largely a self-selecting survey..

@Applekid: Ah. Sounds like something worth watching on a sunday afternoon while doing paperwork

@veg-o-matic: "Basically, though, this is a way for Nielsen to assuage advertisers' fears over drops in consumer confidence."

True, although personally I believe Neilsen to be a total crap shoot anyway. Why they are given so much credibility is beyond me.

I think some ads certainly do help me make better choices - hell, I subscribe to the newspaper almost entirely for the Sunday ads and coupons.

12% doesn't seem that bad to me. Perhaps because mental retardation runs in my family, and I can see several of my cousins responding to that stuff cheerily and with the best of intentions. I mean, national average intelligence is only 97 on the IQ scale. If you pretend that all Consumerist readers have IQ's over 120, then you have to have as many other people under 80, yes?

@Cant_stop_the_rock: And this is where someone calls you out for trying to defuse any possible argument against your comments rather than just accepting that others have different opinions and the right to voice them. This neither makes their comments less valid nor yours more so.

@BZMedia: See, this is the problem I have with advertising. It's so sophisticated and such a marvel of psychological engineering because it's purpose is to screw with our brains enough to a) get us to buy a product and b) be grateful for the brainscrew.

@veg-o-matic: ugh, I'll grammar police myself. *its purpose* not "it's purpose"

@Gtmac:
I'm merely saving people from wasting their time posting things like "hey you can read about new movies on the Internet too," because I'm aware of that fact and it misses the point I was making. I don't care if people disagree with the opinions I stated, and I didn't preemptively counter the arguments against the opinions I stated. I don't feel like dealing with people who dispute the fact that advertisements make things cheaper.

See, there's a difference between opinions and facts.

@SpiderJerusalem: I'm pretty sure the average IQ is 100...seeing as that's how it's defined. :)

@veg-o-matic: Well, yeah. The end goal is to move product. Having you feel good about it helps clinch the sale, reduces returns & chargebacks, and amplifies the ad effect by customer word of mouth. But it doesn't mean all products or services or memberships or whatever are inherently evil for manipulating you through advertising. If the everyone could only advertise with "I have stuff. Buy it." nothing would stand out and nothing would move. Some ads actually do help you. But "helping" you is a means to an end. Others are offending you, shocking you, threatening, frightening, etc. I can understand not liking the brainscrew, but do you feel the same way about an ad that scares the crap out of you, like say a pest control service telling you your house is being eaten, and then stepping in as the only thing standing between you and homelessness? Probably not. It leaves you feeling informed and protected. It's all a game.

@Cant_stop_the_rock: Saving people from wasting their time? This is the internet, right?

I used to like television ads because they gave me a three-minute window to use the bathroom, get a drink, put the dog outside, etc. Now, we record everything and my husband zips right through the commercials. Our remote lets him skip 60 minute intervals. Three presses and we're back to our regularly scheduled program. No more potty breaks.

I sometimes notice ads on the internet, but usually only the annoying ones that drop down and cover my screen when I inadvertently run the mouse over them. If the ad annoys me, I make a deliberate decision to avoid that product whenever possible.

@SpiderJerusalem: If you pretend that all Consumerist readers have IQ's over 120, then you have to have as many other people under 80.

I guess so. I've always seen that distribution represented as a normal curve.

Hmm - Someone who is severely retarded will still score around 60. I have never heard of anyone having an IQ lower than 50. I bet that IQ is not measurable below a certain point - at some point a person would not even aware of the world around them.

@veg-o-matic: Still though, how is this going to accomplish anything? Was some executive thinking of slashing the ad budget because he thought people hated ads? Was some customer feeling like an outcast because he didn't hate ads as much as others?

Either way though, this study just says to me that people realize it's a necessary evil. They know it subsidizes TV and internet, and they admit that they've found the occasional one funny or helpful. That doesn't mean they want to see them.

@Cant_stop_the_rock: Same thing with me and radio. When I got an iPod, I started using that in the car. Since then, my CD purchases have declined severely.

Today I found out that the abandoned half of Van Hagar has an album out. Had I had radio, I would have camped out at the record store on day of launch for that.

@Smashville: Facebook user. Same difference, really. Oddly enough, that's not to suggest I don't use facebook - I do, I just don't log into other sites with it. I digress. On topic: Everyone in the Ad Biz knows Nielsen's rating system is deeply, deeply flawed. Yet they buy the reports and the data and they choose to advertise based on it, knowing full well that the data is garbage and they have no idea who they're actually reaching.

Times like this that make me love America.

@Cant_stop_the_rock: Ads certainly have their place, but there's this big mystique surrounding ads and branding, and it's really hard for advertisers to differentiate between creepy stalker-like tendencies and getting their message to the people they want to get it to in the most direct way possible.

Advertising is useful, but the problem is that too many ads are clogging up conventional media. As a result, everyone loses - consumers are overwhelmed, and advertisers don't get the same level of attention. Finding a solution to that problem has led us down some strange roads.

That is why I own a TIVO and fast forward through commercials. I never read ads on the internet and block spam. I don't listen to the radio and turn past ads in magazines. Billboards are things I only look at when I need something and am searching for it.
Ads are compressed lies.

Oh puh-leez!!!

This sounds suspiciously like a biased con game. Now they're even trying to trick you into believing their crap.

The truth of the matter is that I never EVER buy anything because I saw it advertised. Well okay, I did once and only ONCE.

The only thing I listen to in advertising is reduced prices. If it's on sale, then I may go and buy but I never buy anything because of an ad campaign.

I think the study is complete bunk.

@Smashville: "Censorship" is really shorthand for "I didn't read the posting guidelines, so I shall assume that anyone that is ever disemvoweled or taken to task for violating said guidelines is being censored and isn't really a moron that can't be bothered to read something as simple as posting guidelines."

So, my DVR that automatically skips commercials is causing me to make poor consumer choices?

From the point of a retailer, I guess that makes sense, since not spending money would be considered a poor choice in their mind...

Same goes for Internet ads. With Firefox w/AdBlock+ & FlashBlock, I haven't seen an online ad in years. When people complain about some banner or flash ad, I just scratch my head in amazement that there are people that still see online ads.

Well, if I see a dumb ad, I know enough to buy the competing product.

@BZMedia: I find most American commercials to be quite meh... Now if American commercials would be more like Japanese ones I'd feel better about them (especially airline commercials- JAL commercials actually make me want to fly them).

@Stephmo: QFT.

Television commercials provide insight into the products they advertise like television news programs provide insight into the world around us.

In other words, the more you watch, the less you know.

@magnoliasouth: The study is bunk, there you're right.

But advertising is more subtle than what we might think. Everyone says "I'm not affected by advertising, I've never made a purchase based on an ad!" But we all do, all the time.

Ads are intended precisely to influence perceptions of "brand awareness" and "brand confidence," so the next time you're out shopping, you are more likely to pick up name-brand items over generics, because feel that you "trust" them more. Sophisticated advertising will never make you buy something as a direct result of the ad.

It instead creates an environment where we're more likely to purchase the advertised product, but we won't attribute it to the advertising. We just think we're making an informed choice as a consumer.

Attention ad-people:

Every time I see an ad I make a small mental note not to buy that product.

When that ad pops up in an intrusive manner, like a TV or radio commercial, or an ad on an internet site, I make an enormous mental note not to buy that product.

And if you send me spam or junk mail, I don't care if your product cures cancer...I'd rather die of an ass tumor than give you any money.

You want to advertise, fine. Advertise in such a way that I can go and find out about your product when I feel a need to find a product like yours...in related magazines, related secions of newspapers, and on your website for example. If you throw your crap in my face when I'm trying to do something other than look for some crap to buy, you have succeeded only in decreasing your potential market.

@pupu: Actually that is incorrect. There are a lot of specialized tests for persons with severe - profound mental retardation. As someone who works with adults and children with developmental disabilities, I have seen IQs in the teens and twenties quite often. And a person with severe mental retardation would definitely not score 60! Mild MR, certainly.

@jamar0303: Yeah, I agree with you. (Those JAL planes are pretty awesome). I did like the Alec Baldwin Hulu commercial. Still makes me laugh.