There’s a lot of problems with advertising on Google, YouTube, Instagram etc.
And it Incentivises these big tech companies to collect all your data and spy on you etc.
But where should advertisers advertise?
Let’s say everyone switches to Paid for Search, Paid for Email, stops using social media etc.
Where would advertising swith to?
If someone starts a small business from home selling pillows, how do they reach customers?
If you’re selling me a new brand of cheese give me a discount at the store and I’ll try it.
If you’re selling me an expensive technical piece of equipment send review stuff to various people and organisations that test them.
If you’re selling me a car get to the top of reliability rankings.
Pillows from home: try etsy. If they are not special hand crafted filled with endangered owl feathers or whatever you’ll have a hard time convincing me it’s worth the effort over going to the pillow store or ordering from ikea.
If you’re selling me fast food have a giant arrow pointing at your building so i can find the way there when I’m out driving.
If you’re selling me a subscription: good luck.
If you’re selling me insurance I’ll send you a RFQ every few years so I can compare to my current supplier. (And ask others who have been covered by your insurance if you were good to deal with).
Sometimes it can’t be that cut and dry though. E.g. even at a discount, there is no way a good pack of aged cheddar will be as cheap as the orange-colored plastic called Kraft Singles. Someone who has only ever eaten Kraft Singles won’t know what they’re missing and will just keep buying the cheaper option they know.
The vendor would need to first make folks aware of the difference in quality to convince people to buy. But this is one thing I think stores like Costco get right, at least. There are always people offering free samples of their product. Let the product speak for itself, for free, with no obligation to buy if you don’t like it.
This is also not foolproof because I’ve heard of reviewers being cut off from free products to review if they don’t give a positive rating. There are a lot of “sponsored reviews” as well which are, in fairness, usually disclosed, but they’re something you have to sift through to find less-biased takes.
And tracking me and showing me intrusive ads makes these problems go away?
The original question was if they can’t use the surveillance advertising how will they market their stuff. My suggestions are not without issues, but they are how they can use my shopping habits to sell me their stuff without tracking me.
No no, just that there are some shortcomings with certain approaches that might still impact a company’s ability to reasonably reach customers, light emphasis on “reasonably”.
But it’s just something that they’ll have to figure out how to work around, not something those of us who are sick and tired of the ad spam should have to just accept as necessary evils.
I’m otherwise with you all the way.