Comment by snowbell@beehaw.org on Two brands suspend advertising on X after their ads appeared next to pro-Nazi content

Why do people assume that brands explicitly endorse everything their ads run next to? Do they think companies are purposely seeking out these bad people to run their ads next to? I never got the whole not wanting your ads next to questionable content thing.

I’m no expert but I think it’s the same reason ads are full of hot people: association. If you see an ad for a Baconator enough times next to a neo-Nazi spewing hate speech you’re going to start to link the two in your mind.

Yep it’s the association for sure

But also a factor (for those that know) is that companies will pay for their ads to run to specific demographics of people based on the data that a advertising platform (Twitter, YouTube, Tinder, Facebook, etc) has gathered to determine specific things about you as a person.

It’s the whole concept behind targeted ads. You pay for eyes that will see it and are more likely to purchase your products due to that demographic data. Or at the very least, view your website for traffic that can be used to harvest more data about you so that it can be sold to other companies.

It’s gotta be this one. Marketing works partially with the subconscious and association. They want you to get a fuzzy feeling when you see their logo or a product of theirs in a (web) store. If you don’t get a fuzzy feeling, but you are reminded of the vile fascist shit you read while you saw their ad, you will avoid buying their product, even if you can’t quite put the finger on it.

I know I associate Neo-Nazis with Pigs… I wonder why.

Mmm. Delicious fascism. Greasy!

Why do people assume that brands explicitly endorse everything their ads run next to?

Where by “people”, we mean “individuals with so little critical thinking, that they might get influenced by an ad”.

Well, that’s why. Companies don’t want easily influenciable people to associate their brand with something they’re likely to view as negative.

Everyone is influenced by ads but the tines you re you view as your choice. Immediate purchases aren’t the goal of most ads, it’s mainly uncaughous influence for the next time you have to choose between a few products!

No offense but you really need to proofread your post. We can’t understand what you’re trying to say.

Damn, another total fuckup, you are probably right!

It’s alright, it happens. What were you saying?

The goal of ads isn’t obviouse because it’s subconscious influence on you that often shows up ages after you actually watched the ad. It’s not a “buy now” but rather produce E.g. good feelings around a brand or product by showing you feelgood content and the less you care about the actual ad the more likely you are to ultimately fall for it. The by far biggest issue is that you won’t notice once you fall for it tho because you just made a choice between multiple products and the influence only showed up subconsciously rather than “I noticed that in a ad” which is why they still work, everybody likes to think they are the exception it doesn’t work on but that’s not how exceptions work!

That’s easy: never make unconscious purchase decisions. Consciously set a list of what you want, and follow it. If you know what you want, there is very rarely more than one product that comes closer to meeting the requirements, whether they be objectively measurable, more abstract like quality and trust, or as simple as price. Generally sellers try to find a distinguishing niche, and stick to it.

Of course this requires knowing and caring about what you’re purchasing. If you have enough money to just go by “ooh, shiny!”, then sure, ads can have an influence.

never make unconscious purchase decisions. Consciously set a list of what you want, and follow it.

Yes, but how do you become aware of product you consciously want?

The unconscious is a myth anyway. Freud was a well-known Nazi, as anyone who’s not an unhinged right-winger already knows.

We’re making sense here guys. Let’s keep this discussion going. This is really coherent stuff.

By concatenating words describing concepts I’d like to have together. For example:

Foldable rechargeable lightweight flying exoskeleton
Cheap quiet fan that fits in my window while moving as much air as possible
Waterproof lightweight summer footwear
Non-addictive method to instantly fall asleep
Low sugar cheesecake
Small and cheap dynamometric drill adapter adjustable for 0 to 500Nm

…and so on. Just use your imagination.

Just not the unconscious parts of your imagination. Keep it on the straight and barrow here people.

That’s not the issue, the less you care about the ad itself the more likely you are to process it’s message subcaughously and we simply don’t have the energy actively observe all the ads we are bombarded with…

Subconscious messages are irrelevant if you make your purchase decisions consciously.

“Do you like to drive?”… they can show me beautiful landscapes with nice music and end it with the car maker’s logo all they want, I’m not going to buy a car because I saw the ad, it smells nice, or “has USB”; those are irrelevant parameters that get cut off by my conscious list.

How about those fun fun sweets, foods, whatever, kids like so much these days? I was a kid once, I know I didn’t like all the stuff advertised on TV.

Want to sell me some insurance, telephony, banking, or any other kind of subscription? Good luck showing me people having fun, vacationing or scoring a date, I’m still going to get an online comparator, tick off the things I don’t like, and then compare it to the results of another one or two. Even better luck trying to robocall me; “No, thank you, I’m not interested”, talk to the hand ✋, number blocked.

Same for food (what’s the nutritional list, expiry date, and price/quantity?), hardware (is it the cheapest option meeting my requirements? how easy is it to repair?), clothing (no, I don’t care about being a billboard for your brand), and so on.

If you don’t think you have the bandwidth to watch ads consciously, there are ad blockers for that. For all the rest, there is spending some more time the first time you are about to buy a product you haven’t before.

I am tickled fucking pink to see someone unironically advocating for living life free of the shackles of the unconscious. I’m dying 😂

I copy pasted that because I have two basically identical arguments rn, just wanted to add that I do have a ad blocker but that doesn’t work everywhere ads are shown, especially IRL…

It’s not about smart or stupid, ads use various mechanisms to manipulate you and noone is completely immune to them, when you spend your money it’s too late already because you have bias no matter how slight it is and once you are presented with two idendically good products that bias starts to show. Here is a great German video on the topic, I don’t know if the subtitles are usable but it’s far too big and complex to explain in a single comment and I don’t care to try rn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etkeGVNRVYA

Oh yeah what could be easier? Just stop making unconscious decisions!

It’s not just that they don’t want their ads next nazi crap, it’s that they don’t want to put ads on a platform that has nazi crap. You make a platform friendly to nazis, you lose advertising.

Society still has standards! Thank God!

Not especially high ones as recent years have shown but at least still better than nothing!

People will presure companies not to allow it. “I will not purchase your product because it is helping fund hate speech”

It doesn’t matter that the company did not choose to place the ad there. The ad being there gives money to platform that they are recieving because of hate speech.

And here you are trying to save the planet. The very same planet that created the Nazis. One has to wonder where your loyalties really lie.

I believe it’s a matter of being in the same platform as controversial content.

In the end they’re paying Twitter to display their ads, and if Twitter allows questionable content to be in their platform, the companies are indirectly supporting it.

Especially considering we’re talking targeted advertisement so the ads are based on who you are and not which corner of twitter you’re hanging on.

Tiki torch companies must be making bank off of Twitter ads now, though. They don’t even have to use keyword matches to show up in all the right places.

A lot of advertising still works on association and suggestion. That industry was heavily influenced by Freuds son in law.

Juxtaposition is a type of association.

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Two brands suspend advertising on X after their ads appeared next to pro-Nazi content(www.cnn.com)

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