Category talk:Marketing

From LentzWiki

Living without Advertising

Arjen makes reference to a life without advertising so I thought others would be interested in my life "almost without advertising". Firstly can I propose that the problem with advertising is not that it exists but rather than so much of it "interrupts" our lives. It is the "interruptive" (is that a word?) advertising that I live "almost without". Let me explain.

I do not:

- Have a Television (I watch the occasional movie using my Data Projector) - Listen to commercial radio stations (ABC in the car and thats it) - Generally read the newspaper - Frequent websites that place advertising "in your face" (I don't find a need for ad block software). - Generally read magazines that are primarily advertising (ie 80% of mags!) - Have email accounts on hotmail, yahoo etc etc - Go to the movies (maybe once a year .. so the ads are a novelty on the big screen!) - Do very much online shopping (hang I don't do much shopping!) - Watch inflight entertainment (on domestic routes ... international is ok cause you don't get any ads to talk of)

The above are the primary sources of what I call "interruptive" advertising. Just imagine life without all of the above... sound dull? Not at all. I keep myself busy with lots of other things... just keeping up with 3 kids keeps you out of trouble! And yes I do know what is going on in the world.. there are plenty of quality advertising-free news sources out there!

But I guess my point is that I rarely feel the need to complain about advertising because its rarely "interruptive". Sure I still see plenty of it... billboards, backs of buses, in supermarkets etc etc but by taking away the "interruptive" stuff, there really is a sense of comparative bliss.

I should add that the reason I don't have/do the things in the list above actually has nothing to do with advertising... I have a whole range of other reasons for that ... the life "almost without advertising" is really just a side effect of the philosophies that lead to it... but I must admit, its a side effect I quite like!

Next time, I'll see if I can dissect what it takes to successfully market to a person like me (ie I'm not against marketing either).