Since the late 1990s, drug companies have spent tens of billions of dollars on television ads, drumming up demand for their products with cheerful jingles and scenes of dancing patients.
That’s actually not how advertising works. Unless you live in a bubble in the US, you’re seeing drug ads at the tire shop, airport, restaurant, gas station, billboards, everywhere.
Advertising is more about subconscious placement of things than active watching. Very few people sit down with a bowl of popcorn to watch 30 commercials for pleasure. You don’t even realize it got you, and may never.
Futurama did a good sketch on the concept with “lightspeed briefs” where they were advertising in Fry’s dreams. Principle has always been the same.
These ads used to be illegal, until the FDA in 1997 made it legal, David A. Kessler, who’s appointment continued by President Bill Clinton at the time made them legal. This same FDA actually did good things like nutrition facts labels, so it wasn’t all terrible. They alleged that advertising drugs would help inform the public, although in reality, it is a terrible mechanism to broadcast that type of information as marketing to an uninformed public and it should have never been allowed.
Futurama did a good sketch on the concept with “lightspeed briefs” where they were advertising in Fry’s dreams. Principle has always been the same.
I feel obligated to post the transcript for this reference.
Leela: Didn’t you have ad’s in the 20th century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky! But not in dreams. No siree!
Also not to mention, it influences your friends or family and the people you interact with. Unless you’re an antisocial hermit, you’re going to be affected one way or another
Only old or ignorant people still watch ads. So, of course this piece of shit sees them all day long.
Not defending the guy, to be clear, but.
That’s actually not how advertising works. Unless you live in a bubble in the US, you’re seeing drug ads at the tire shop, airport, restaurant, gas station, billboards, everywhere.
Advertising is more about subconscious placement of things than active watching. Very few people sit down with a bowl of popcorn to watch 30 commercials for pleasure. You don’t even realize it got you, and may never.
Futurama did a good sketch on the concept with “lightspeed briefs” where they were advertising in Fry’s dreams. Principle has always been the same.
These ads used to be illegal, until the FDA in 1997 made it legal, David A. Kessler, who’s appointment continued by President Bill Clinton at the time made them legal. This same FDA actually did good things like nutrition facts labels, so it wasn’t all terrible. They alleged that advertising drugs would help inform the public, although in reality, it is a terrible mechanism to broadcast that type of information as marketing to an uninformed public and it should have never been allowed.
I feel obligated to post the transcript for this reference.
Leela: Didn’t you have ad’s in the 20th century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky! But not in dreams. No siree!
Also not to mention, it influences your friends or family and the people you interact with. Unless you’re an antisocial hermit, you’re going to be affected one way or another