Note: I am not the original author. This post originally appeared on Reddit, and the author has since deleted their account. I am archiving this post here so its advice isn’t lost. I have made a quick pass in editing for typographical errors.

I’m a former art director in advertising, and thought I’d share a bit about ads

I had commented about advertising in a previous post, and got a bit of a reaction, so I wanted to share more in case anyone was interested in how advertising works.

First off, I’ll say — I’ve been in advertising since I was 15, I’m 31 now. I quit the industry when I was 26 and am now doing UX design/branding for nonprofits, and super happy where I’m at now, still do a bit of advertising to promote the NPs.

Secondly — This isn’t to say advertising is evil or bad or whatever, this is just what happens and how it works. I’m trying to stay very netural with the facts.

A few things about advertising

1. Modern advertising really only came to existence around ~1950s, you can research David Ogilvy. Basically he’s the one who started really using storytelling in magazines to achieve a new imaginary lifestyle.
2. I’ll highlight — Most consumer advertising is SUPPOSED to sell you on an imaginary lifestyle and teaches you that you lack something
3. Advertising targets your subconscious, You don’t go around reading ads aloud all day, it’s supposed to bypass your consciousness and target your fears/“desire center” in your brain. It triggers a tribalistic response from the fear of not fitting in (“Keeping up with the Joneses”) or an “I’m lacking” response
4. There are teams of highly paid professional creatives and data scientists doing massive amounts of research to gain your attention for like 6 seconds, in order to subconsiously sell you a product or tell you you’re missing something, fucking insane right?! But it’s true!
5. It’s all about winning your time and attention. At a certain point, it’s not even about receiving your money, it’s about planting the seed of “look at me, talk about me, remember me” because it will eventually turn into a profit somehow, whether it’s you talking about it with your friends or actually purchasing the item.

Things we test in advertising

1. We hold focus groups to see which ads perform better. We pay “average consumers” for their time to interact with a product to make it more appealing to the general public (or maybe a target demographic)
2. They literally hold focus groups where they track pupil movement to see where people’s eyes land on areas of an ad and for how long.
3. Lots of data is tracked, including heat maps on websites. Many websites will install heat maps to see where their users click the most, and then alter their websites as needed to gain more interest.

Here are ads that you may not know are ads

1. Every logo. Every logo is an advertisement. Nike has literally people PAY $$$$ to be a walking billboard for them… incredible!
2. “Native articles” — these are articles that are sponsored by, say, your local cable company. But it won’t outright say that it’s sponsored, it may have a tiny line on the very bottom of the article saying that it’s sponsored by them. Many listicles are likely to be sponsored or paid for by whatever company is being promoted in the listicle.
3. Published studies. Now this fucking sucks and is why I very rarely read or believe anyone nowadays. Most published studies are funded by companies in their own self-interest. That article you read about wine being good for you? Probably funded by someone in the alcohol industry. Phillip Morris (cigarette company) both owns the cigarettes AND the nicotine patch brands. So this company is profiting off your addiction and your recovery and probably publishing studies with off-brand names quoting an “independent study” but it’s really just them. The “doctors” they interview are likely to be paid sponsors. Many many many large companies have this going on, you, as an average consumer, probably just don’t know about it.
4. Curated content — Social media influencers are the most obvious, they can make anywhere between $500–$100k on a post that has “product placement” in it, even if they aren’t directly promoting it. Say you see a popular person wearing a Chanel bracelet in a post, you can guarantee Chanel sent them that for free (and maybe then some.) Influencers also include your million+ subscriber YouTube channels, even if it’s some tech reviewer — he’s likely being paid in products or whatever to say certain things, despite how much they claim they’re not being paid for opinion. They’re being paid to put a product in front of 1M subscribers, that’s enough to sway public opinion.
5. Guerilla marketing. There are a lot of stunts being pulled in public that you may not know are marketing. Bartenders can be told which alcohols to promote. Grocery cashiers ask you if you want to donate to St Jude’s Children’s hospital. Someone on the street asks you to take a picture with their “Really cool Sony Camera”. Etc. That’s all advertising
6. Word of mouth advertising. This is the most effective form because it’s person-to-person within your social group. How many times have you had a friend try something and then they’re like “omg we have to go here!” that’s word of mouth. Then they plan on taking you and 6 friends to this new nightclub. Now that night club has your business. And they didn’t have to pay anything for you to say it.

Some thought/experiments to really nail in what’s going on:

1. For every billboard you see today, I want you to imagine that there’s a group of 10 people shouting at you to buy the product, because that’s essentially what the team of creatives is doing. It just so happens to be a silent image that’s doing all the shouting, but rarely do people understand or notice it.
2. Take an hour out while walking around your town to count how many ads you see in that time. Logos count! Shop names count! Like, if you pass by 20 cars parked, how many logos do you see that you finally become aware of. This is what your brain is soaking up even though you’re not conscious of it. Your brain filters out a bunch of the noise, but there’s a term “reach and frequency” that is why Nike puts its logos on every single item of clothing. Because seeing a logo over and over and over again is basically teaching you to remember it.
3. Take some blue painters tape, and tape over every logo you see in your house. Food labels, router logo, tech logos. This is just in your house.

There is an article somewhere that says an average person sees about 6000 ads per day. While I can’t say that I’ve researched past that article, as someone who has been in the “war rooms” of ad agencies, I can absolutely say that I’m not surprised it isn’t more.

You subconsciously have to say “no” over and over and over again, and a lot of people just don’t have the bandwidth to ignore 6000 ads every day for the rest of their life. Something, somewhere, is going to give. Once you become consciously aware of advertising, it’s easier to channel that “desire trigger” into things like “I know I’m gonna want to spend money, but I’m going to spend it on educational courses or on music lessons for myself or personal training sessions or investing, instead of crap I don’t need.”

So to end this, don’t be hard on yourself if you can’t avoid the ads. On a single day you probably bypass “thousands” of people trying to sell you things in the form of advertisements. It’s a lot.

My suggestions is to: Go into nature more, meditate more, figure out what you want to channel your spending into, find free activities, opt out of buying from big companies, opt out of mailing lists, opt out of shopping malls, opt out of Amazon.

EDIT: Wow guys thanks so much for the really great comments and conversation and awards!! I really enjoyed sharing this and really happy you guys found this so interesting (advertising is definitely an interesting field). I tried to respond to as many comments as I could, but it’s definitely worth the read in the comment section if you have the time to. There’s more info from people in the industry too who have more insights than I gave on the original post

More avoidance techniques: Get an adblocker, take side streets instead of main streets (if it’s safe to — less advertising on neighborhood/side streets), focus on the nature when you’re walking down the street, spend time in front of water (ocean/lake/rivers/lagoons), cover up the logos in your house, get into brandless packaging.