And they're so brutally honest about it

[elfs]

So, take a look at this ad (If you can't get to it, you might have to go here). I'm a bit agog at just how brutally honest this is. But what amuses me here is the barcode. I have that issue of Adbusters. They've taken an anti-advertising schtick and turned it into a pro-advertising schtick, and they're completely without apology for doing so.

Rage is useless. It'll just be filmed, packaged and sold back to you.

Comments

[kenshardik]

Sounds about par for the course for G4. I still miss TechTV.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

The problem is that getting us thinking geeks to boycott the product won't do any good either. One would have to come up with some way to monkeywrench the whole works.

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

The language of the advertising and marketing world is either laughable or infuriating, depending on how you feel about the question of Free Will.

If I have Free Will, then all they can do is make me aware of some product or service. I decide what to buy.

If I don't have Free Will, then I am at the mercy of marketing - when they impinge on my senses with advertising, they evoke in me the volition to buy...

They like to talk about the masses that they advertise to as if they can "drive demand", and it's precisely that language that makes the anti-advertising people go nuts and scream for "protection" of the masses from the rapacious corporations and their lackeys on Madison Avenue. Poppycock.

Fundamentally, so long as they don't lie (which is illegal), they're providing a necessary service in a capitalist economy: telling you of products and services that are available to you.

If G4 were being really honest, they'd say that they were selling the ability to market to that demographic, rather than the ability to buy that demographic. A false advertising claim could be made here, actually ...

Unless you don't believe in Free Will.

[fallenpegasus]

The folks in the ad-making and ad-buying biz all read Adbusters. It's part of their lexicon. Even more so, now that their target demographics are all advertising aware, and post-post-cynical.

[kengr]

Gee, I wonder if Adbusters can sue for copyright violation?