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12h1m
I have always wondered how a world without marketing would look. I think marketing has a net negative effect. I also think that maybe you cannot eliminate all marketing but you can easily eliminate most of it just by controlling the spending of big companies, so it's possible. I have no ethical problems with eliminating it, as I consider it a form of manipulation and falsehood spreading, and anyway I don't consider companies have a right to free speech, or any real rights for that matter.
So I'm curious. Suppose you're starting a new small business. You're selling a quality product but nobody knows about you. How do you propose they find out?
Word of mouth, to start. If there's no marketing, consumers in general will understand that they need to seek out products that they want and need, and will eventually find your new product.
A side bonus is that this will eliminate a lot of useless garbage. Without advertising to manipulate people into buying things they didn't need and otherwise would not want, companies that sell junk will fail.
At any rate, finding customers within the constraints of the law (including a hypothetical advertising ban) is not society's problem, it's the company's problem.
If you have two customers and you need a thousand customers to cover your fixed costs, you're out of business before this has time to be effective.
What you're really implying is that somebody is going to set up a website or search engine for people to find products, and then marketing would be replaced entirely by SEO and payola.
The assumption here is that the companies selling junk aren't the incumbents. What mechanism is going to exist to help people identify what is and isn't junk that can't or doesn't exist already?
Do independent reviews and product testing count as marketing?
There's some element of magicking away the payola in this thought experiment.
We already have those things. To the extent that people can use them to get the good product instead of the junk one, don't they already do it?
And, of course, we know that these things are often corrupted. One of the major problems is that people want this most for products that are expensive, but manufacturers only send free/pre-release test samples to reviewers they think will publish a favorable review.
To do it right you need the reviewer to not have this dependency on the manufacturer for access, so they need money to buy the product themselves. Which is what you get with Consumer Reports, but they (haha) aren't funded by advertising, and then people on a tight budget forego subscription and don't know what to buy.
Because they are bombarded with effective psychological manipulation designed specifically to get them to buy buy buy without thinking.
That's really two different classes of products. You want to read a review before you buy a car, but by and large people actually do that already.
Low cost items don't need that because this isn't going to be the only sandwich or bottle of laundry detergent you buy this decade, so it's as easy to take a chance on it once and try it yourself as to read a review which may or may not be biased, and then if it sucks you don't buy it again.
Somehow you have to get your product in front of (and probably give it away) to the people doing the independent reviews and product testing. That's marketing.
There are probably some exceptions in well-defined markets with a limited number of products like automobiles but those are actually companies that, in general, spend a lot on marketing and advertising.
You don't have a right to stay in business if the net effect of ccreating the conditions for you to do so is socially harmful.
Rapid hyper-growth of the sort preferred by VCs might not be so common in a world which banned advertising. I don't see that as an issue.
The obvious answer is that you chose a risky business to go into.
There as a time when if you sold tiny hinges to mount stamps in a stamp collecting book there would be a Philatelist Monthly magazine or such that would be your target market where you can advertise.
Spend your marketing budget on your fixed costs.
Also, is your product direct-to-consumer? Because if it isn't, there are established channels to sell it to distributes, and if it is, you're likely a big part of the problem (since marketing of direct-to-consumer products is not usually a tool to let people know about new quality products).
The only thing that would achieve is that a "word of mouth" businesses would pop up. People would sign up, product place stuff in regular talks about weather near the office coffee machine. You would visit your parents and they would told ask you to buy some stuff you don't need because they would get a cut. Would you prefer that? I surely wouldn't.
People have no idea how the world works, yet want to design laws and would like to force other people to act according to their preferences. It's so egocentric it's unbelievable.
A product which needs help beyond its own merits to make a sale likely doesn't meet most people's definition of quality.
Genuinely fantastic products spread like wildfire on their own, without paid promotion.
I'd love to live in a world where there's no advertising and so therefore the only products available have to be genuinely fantastic.
I can't see a downside - just as many products will still be needed for just as many people, so it shouldn't affect the economy negatively.
What would happen is we would evolve faster and have more safety, reliability, productivity etc. The lack of useless junk polluting the planet would be yet another positive.
Advertising is a net negative on human evolution.
How does the customer know anything about its merits if they've never heard of it?
What if it's not world changing product, it's just a new normal competitor in an existing market whose product is 2% better than average? Or is exactly average, but it costs slightly less? Don't we still want these things?
An obvious downside is that it gives an even bigger advantage to incumbents with a known brand.
Not sure why you so desperately try to find some moral justification for advertising, having the skin in the game like many in HN?
Its literally manipulation of those who have money to spend them on product they otherwise wouldn't, has absolutely 0 relationship on quality on the product (in extreme cases it goes directly against it). Word of mouth, unbiased reviews (yes, they cost something to keep the interference away but save you tons of money and time down the line). Its 2024, we are more connected than we probably should be. Manipulation always = lies, it doesn't matter how you wrap them around. We all have moral compass (barring sociopaths/psychopaths et al), and we all have opinion on such behavior.
Sure its like nuclear armament, once one does it many feel they also need to do it. But its purely emotional business on both ends (customers and companies feeling the need to pay for ads), where literally the only person truly winning is the advertiser (something about selling shovels during gold rush). Mankind as it is only loses, I don't see any way its morally justifiable. Even having less services say online available for free ain't a losing proposition if you look at long term damage of advertising.
This is an extremely strong claim. Certainly you'd concede that some ads contain truthful information. Like there exists at least one ad that is true. So then how is it "manipulation" for someone to post that information in a public space?
We jumped from "billboards are ugly" to "ads are categorically evil," and based on some pretty strong assumptions.
Okay, so how do you get the first person to buy your product if advertising is illegal? The base case would seem to require it. Same goes for "independent reviews." How do you find the independent reviewer? And this is ignoring getting a critical mass of customers for word of mouth to even work.
They buy it and try it out. How do you think most things sell? It isn't advertising! When I go to the supermarket, I know they have food and home supplies. If you sell one of those things, get it on a shelf. My supermarket literally has tiny batch products from local cottage industry. If I need hardware, I know I can get it at lowes or Home Depot. I didn't need any advertising to know that a place that says "Hardware store" on the sign will sell hardware!
This will entirely occupy all conversation of most normal people. People LOVE to talk about their shit that is slightly better than the same shit you buy. People LOVE to tell friends and family and strangers about this product they bought that is just slightly different.
Which is why Coca-Cola still advertises right? Because advertising only helps those just getting started in selling a brand new product?
One caveat being, some high quality things really do get drowned out or conceptually polluted by loudly advertised crap. It's a tangly problem that's for sure
It's less tangly if there isn't loudly advertised crap.
Partial answer: A lot of products people buy are not directly from the maker, but some store. So instead of marketing directly to consumers, the maker can just go and pitch to the store owner, who then carries the product. If there are enough stores out there (not a world full of Walmarts), then most makers will find many stores to carry their product. People go to the store, browse and buy.
How does this account for high streets becoming ghost towns in the UK? It seems like running bricks & mortar stores in the UK isn't financially viable.
One word. Amazon.
I heard someone say Amazon did more damage to British town centres than Hitler's bombs.
Wasn't especially my observation last time I was in London. But it's fair that a combination of online purchases and (maybe?) changing tastes/priorities have taken a hit on at least some categories of B&M retail overall.
Well, ads obviously haven't worked...
You won't have the money to buy such billboards anyways. Also it would be more efficient to do semi-targeted advertising by buying space in related places: magazines related to your product, sponsor spots in youtube videos, ads in specialty stores, etc. Start small by targeting an audience likely to be interested, not by mass-advertising in a spray-and-pray fashion.
Example: I found out about JLCPCB from sponsor segments on electronics youtube channels, when they started their offering. Granted this is not a small business (the company behind JLC is a behemoth), but it is a Chinese company unknown in the west, that only did B2B before. They advertised directly to audiences that might be interested.
Those are all still marketing. Whether they're better than billboards depends on what the product is.
Billboard space is available starting at on the order of $1000/month. This is well within the reach of a small business for a one month campaign and the dynamic billboards will even sell space on an interval of 15 minutes.
The fixed billboards in the most expensive cities are all Coca Cola and McDonalds because those cost the most and that's who can afford them, but the proposal is "ban all marketing" not "ban all marketing by multinational corporations".
The latter might be a good time though.
I thought we were talking specifically about banning billboard marketing. Or outdoor marketing if you want to be broad.
I see no problem with that at all. Somehow, as has been pointed out in this thread, Hawaiians, etc, seem to make do.
While that is the overall conversation, this specific subthread is rooted on a comment suggesting a world without marketing wholesale.
I don't know about you but I'm still not finding out about them, they have to compete with more established businesses for ad space.
I have gotten precisely one piece of marketing communication that had a positive value in my entire life and it was from an online restaurant supplier. One. Solitary. Closer to forty than I am thirty.
I just don't think the value proposition that you're talking about actually exists.
You're just observing the long-term effects.
If you're a new business and you're any good and you do effective marketing, in a couple years you're an established business. Then you see their ad and you say "well yeah but they're an established business." Now they are, but at one point they weren't. And at that point they weren't buying as much advertising because they didn't have as much money, but if they hadn't bought any they'd be gone instead of established.
I also kind of suspect that big companies buy a lot of advertising specifically to outbid their smaller competitors on the ad slots, because the ROI is much higher for the company that wouldn't have been the customer's default, so the bigger company isn't buying the slot to build awareness, they're buying it to keep their challenger from doing that. And then most of the ads you see are for big companies.
But not all of them.
This is massively burying the lede here. Doing 'effective marketing' costs a large amount of money. Where is this marketing budget going to come from with a fresh business that hasn't begun to sell products at scale yet?
Yes. It requires an investment. Setting up a website. Maybe going to and speaking at relevant events. Sending out press releases. Etc. If you're going to setup a business and just not tell anyone, you probably shouldn't bother. And, in general, telling people and promoting your business is marketing even if you don't classically advertise.
Billboards are there for big corporations to retain their oligopolies, not for small ones to penetrate them.
Then how come small businesses buy them sometimes?
Well, when was the last time someone saw something like that advertised on billboards? Can’t remember ever seeing anything like it on a billboard outside SF which is a very weird special case
How often have you discovered a quality product through advertising, rather than through reviews, personal recommendations, or just being present in a store? I have a hard time remembering even a single case.
The same way humanity has done for thousands of years? Word of mouth and reputation. This isn't a new problem, what's new is the ubiquitousness of advertising and the amount of money that gets pissed away on marketing.
So what ends up happening is that local businesses don't get any of the marketing opportunities which get bought out by big businesses with a large ad spend budget.
In a free market your product, if it is truly better than competitors, will sell more. Because consumers will research products based on merit, and consumers can tell somehow which product is higher quality, and they can do it instantly.
As you can see, we have never lived in a free market.
A world without marketing would still allow for products to be registered, reviewed, rated, and for people to talk about it. It would still allow you to have a website and a newsletter that people can opt into. The only restriction would be that you cannot pay for better visibility, reviews or references from influencers.
So the way I imagine it would work is that you would register your product into an official registry (free of charge). Then if I need something specific I can search the registry for what I need, and your product might pop up, with links to your website, your videos, as well as all reviews and ratings. There could be a subsidy system that makes unreviewed products cheaper. If your product is really awesome, the awesome reviews should, in principle, suffice to make your business thrive.
Of course, whatever the system in place is, there needs to be work done to make sure it cannot be cheated: if people can pay to prop up their product, they will. But it shouldn't be necessary to pay to make people aware of a product that could improve their lives. Surely it should be possible to set up some kind of discovery system.
Your product can be listed somewhere, discovered, word of mouth... The thing is you cannot pay to promote it. I agree it would be a challenge to solve, maybe some kind of compromise could be achieved.
My hope is that there would be an increased demand for journalism & reviews.
Obviously we need to stop companies from paying them off, but that's not impossible.
If it's not 1905, you put up a website and let people search for your product. Modern marketing doesn't seek to inform, after all. It doesn't work to make a product discoverable. Does Ford Motor Company really need to spend that $400 million annually? Would anyone soon forget the existence of the F150?
You know what, how about this: A corporation gets to spend let's say up to 5% of its total budget on advertising in the first two months of its existence, as long as it has a new product that is exclusive to the company and as long as the company is advertising exclusively for itself and for the new product, and as long as the corporation is financially and structurally independent from established corporations. Any loopholes that let Coca-Cola take advantage of this are systematically closed, the intent of the law is clearly communicated, and the FTC fines any established corporation trying to work around it.
This advertising is only legal to put in free versions of media that have paid ad-free versions, and to opt-in newsletters organized by product (so that people can pay to keep it out of their lives but if they're curious about innovations in a space or just want to know what's coming out they can get a slight discount for it).
This also gives an advantage to new companies, which is probably a good thing, though could of course be abused by a billionaire with fly-by-night companies, at which point we'd have to patch that loophole. Maybe with my favorite idea of "ownership disclosures", where the majority owner(s) of any given corporation has to be disclosed on product labels, so that you know if you're buying from Nestle or Unilever even if they want to obfuscate that fact.
Your post is actually a form of marketing.
Marketing for a certain idea, world view. Some may agree, others won’t.
That’s what we do as species. We talk, we collaborate, we argue, we market.
I don't think so. For me the real test is whether or not someone is giving me a monetary incentive. The very act of having to pay someone to say something increases the probability of it being a lie
For me the real test is whether or not someone is trying to persuade other human beings towards a certain action. An action that is favourable for you.
This can be monetary of course. But this could also be ballot vote on election day. This could be a change in behaviour of people to drive less cars, but take the train instead. Or convince people that advertising should be banned for large corporates.
Marketing is the art and science of achieving behavioural changes to your benefit.
Yes, we are always trying to have some effects on other people's behavior, but I don't think most people would say it's marketing. And maybe most important, quantity is a quality on itself. So, me as an individual trying to persuade another individual is a total different game than a big corporation trying to persuade millions of people. To give a more clear cut example, me having a look on the street is very different to mass surveillance.
Of course it’s convenient to define it the way it best fits your argument. I don’t blame you for that.
Quantity is of course relevant. But then again big corporations can do ANYTHING at a bigger scale than you and me.
Most in the ad game would see it as claiming behavioural changes to the benefit of clients in exchange for cash and reputation.
Marketing is as much about selling a vision to a client as it is about moving the public.
There are plenty of pointless rebranding campaigns.
I think the test for me, at least for the kind of marketing/advertising that should be banned, is the passiveness of it.
If, while going through my day, I am interrupted by your billboard, banner ad, spam email, promotional app notification, street marketing person, etc. in an attempt to manipulate me into action, that is the thing that should be illegal.
If I walk into a shop and say "I'm looking for a camera", invite a business in to pitch for work, call somoene up for a quote, directly enter a query like "buy camera uk" into a search engine, etc. then I think that is ok. I have asked to be sold to, and I am mentally prepared for the fact of that happening (notwithstanding that certain techniques should maybe also not be allowed).
That's exactly something a marketing person would say
Trust me, I’m a nerd ;)
The difference is that people come to the comment section here to read opinions on the subject of the article. People don't go on a highway drive just to learn about what lawyers and and casinos are available. I'm sure you can also understand the difference between a catalogue listing on-topic producs and unprompted signage.
Show HN is also a big part of HN.
Karma will you get more status and increase the likelihood of posts being upvoted. There are many guides online how to rank on HN in order to market your startup.
HN comments have influenced my thinking and my subsequent actions quite heavily in the past years.
The line you’re drawing is super thin and only theoretical.
A lot of marketing is not falsehood spreading. It’s literally just trying to get the word to potential customers that a thing exists that might be useful to them. Most b2b marketing is like that.
I agree that marketing where they have an attractive person just show something is manipulative though.
Show me an ad that you think is just "trying to get the word out" and I'll show you the lies.
Sure, google “skid steer rental Chicago”.
One of the sponsored results is for an electric skid steer that I didn’t know existed. This is genuinely useful to know for small jobs.
Another sponsored result is for a delivery rental service that can bring them anywhere. Also good to know for jobs where I don’t want to go to an equipment rental place in the city to haul it myself to a site 150 miles away.
A separate example is that lots of airports have 3rd party off airport parking that is cheaper. A billboard on the highway to the airport that says “off-site aport parking $20/day, $80/week with 24/7 shuttle service every 15 mins” is literally all just useful information about a way to save money using a third party at a convenience cost that you wouldn’t think to look into.
-Xoogler working in the startup world
Please consider that your worldview may be warped.
Please consider you might not understand why I left.
This is just so wide of the mark in my experience, especially B2B where the sales and marketing tactics are just, well, awful.
What I have observed is that almost without fail, I find out about really good, high quality products and services from friends and colleagues, through more general word of mouth, by reading reviews, and by research, not through ads.
In fact, it is so noticably true that what is being advertised to me is rarely what I want that I use advertising as a negative signal. If I recall seeing ads for something, I will consciously avoid buying it and that usually works out for the best.
So I conclude advertising is mostly important for duping people into buying things they don't really want or need, that are more than likely nothing special, and that society would benefit greatly from a ban on advertising.
Well, if you try to run your own business of any type, you suddenly realize why there's need for marketing. Things don't sell themselves. Nobody beats a path to your door even with the best of mousetraps.
... because your competitiors are using ads to manipulate your potential customers into buying from them instead of you. Do you think people would just stop eating because restaurants/grocery stores were not allowed to advertise?
I would stop eating because I wouldn’t be able to sell my products and won’t have money to go to restaurants! Like most of the people who don’t work for employers (so they could outsource their marketing efforts to corporations), and have to market their efforts.
I can see why you would have trouble gaining customers without deception when you are not even able to answer a simple question honestly.
Marketing is not about deception, it is about visibility.
You are right that advertising employs other manipulative tactics besides just deception. The other tactics are just as bad and most ads are straight up deceptive.
We would all be standing there at the entrance of the supermarket exchanging awkward looks not knowing what to do until an old lady shows up and we grab a cart because she did. Then we follow her around the store pretending not to be looking, buying the same products. When everyone has paid and the old lady is long gone we have conversations about what to do with the things we've just purchased.
Is this supposed to be sarcasm? Genuinely stumped what you are trying to say because the literal interpretation of your comment makes zero sense.
Oh man, I thought it was completely obvious what marketing is.
It takes effort to bridge the gap between users and manufacturers. We are used to the company doing the work and picking up the bill but the customer has as much need to figure out what solutions are available.
Having the company search the customer only barely works. It works but very poorly and only to some extend. The potential client feels bothered by the noise of endless offers and spends very little time on them. In stead of dangling your garden set in their face until one of them bites you can put it in a store next to the other garden sets.
Because pushing barely work products are limited to that what is instantly obvious.
Customers may also gather and inform themselves. They might willingly go to a conference and sit though lengthy presentations. In stead of screaming at you that I offer an email service a presentation is more about what sets it apart [say] its scripting interface.
If stores and conferences are still considered marketing the customer will have to put in more work to stay informed. They would tend more towards objective side by side comparison making the company more about the product than about marketing.
The pun of my joke was that customers are not stupid. They can find the breakfast cereal aisle and pick something entirely by themselves.
I thought it was obvious since the screaming contest is enormously frustrating. An overpriced mediocre product will allow for the largest budget which is most likely to win - so that is what you have to make? lame
Your vision of a world without marketing doesn't have children raised by adults? How would that work?
I kind of wonder how far you want to go with these sorts of things.
Would controlling things like this bleed into adjacent social controls, like how HOAs will prevent any house from looking too different? Or possibly take on other dimensions, like sponsored in-real-life product placement and word-of-mouth?
As far as it makes sense and has a positive effect, don't be a pain.
I don’t think this is a real concern.
Regular people living their lives like to make arbitrary changes to their houses, which is why HOA rules are contentious.
Regular people aren’t paid to advertise as they go about their day. It’s not very comparable.
And I’ve never heard anyone suggest that word of mouth recommendations should be banned... That’s kind of an insane idea that isn’t even remotely possible.